Half Moon in the Wall
by extra-Mt
Summary: Lana Winters, trapped in the shithole of Briarcliff, finds a note hidden in a wall. Out of curiosity, she writes a reply to the note, establishing a connection with the faceless person by chance. While determined to find them, a chance to get out of the institution interferes with her journey.
1. Chapter 1

**Happy Holidays!**

 **A/N:** There's a quote from _Fahrenheit 451_ by Ray Bradbury. Clearly I don't own that one.

* * *

 _-It's midnight. The screams won't shut up. Somebody save me from this place.-_

That was all the little piece of paper said.

My eyes followed those words over and over again. To memorize them, to suck the magical power out of them, to get me out of this place.

Briarcliff Manor. This obnoxious place. It was the place I found myself living in after the failed attempt to find the cell of Bloody Face. It smelled piss and shit, and humans' rotting flesh. The melody of Dominique was played repeatedly, solely in order to drive the patients to further madness.

When the Sister Jude had admitted me against my will about two weeks ago, there was still hope. Hope that I was going to escape this hell and expose the inhumane reality of the asylum to the eyes of the world.—Something had happened to the optimism and bravery since then. Jude's various forms of cruelty had shattered them in complete pieces. My life in this place was misery and misery was my life. The faith in myself, my ex-lover, and life itself, might be floating in someone's filth bucket by now.

So, when Sister Jude had commanded I organize the anarchic library as punishment—for something I didn't care to know,—my motivation was as low as hell's ground level.

Until I found that note, that is.

The tattered paper must have been sitting there for quite a long time—it wasn't an everyday occurrence that this place had a visitor. It was quite possible that the last time someone'd come here was more than years ago. Most of the inmates, and even some of the employees, didn't seem to know its existence. It was not a surprise, though, as the life at Briarcliff might as well be just their own rooms, the common room, the bakery, and—if Jude liked them enough—the solitary confinement.

The words on the note were written pretty neatly. My own handwriting wasn't exactly the finest thing.—I'd been actually surprised when Jude was able to decipher my notes at all. Wendy used to say my handwriting mirrored my personality—messy, strong, persistent, and sometimes incomprehensible.

The owner of those written words—whoever it was—must be gentle and fragile, I decided.

"The screams won't shut up." The paper swayed in my hand as my breaths hit it. "Somebody save me from this place . . ."

Even though the mysterious person didn't have a tangible shape in my mind, I felt a sense of familiarity. A sense of comradery, someone might describe.—Patients screamed, cried, and howled throughout the night, until they fell asleep from exhaustion. Somebody's screams were another person's lullaby. Eventually you won't be able to tell if those voices are simply the echoes of others' suffering, or something coming from inside your own head. That was the way of their lives—ours. This was how it always had been at Briarcliff.

I didn't know what came over me, nobody could ever explain. But when I realized, I'd ripped a small piece of paper out of a nearby magazine, and was scribbling words on it. There was no harm in writing a reply to the long-forgotten note. Nobody was going to read it.

Perhaps, this was my way of seeking a shelter for my despaired heart. Perhaps, this was my heart searching for a company—however invisible and imaginable this other person might be—in this hell.

My grip around the short pencil gradually gained its strength, until there was a faint sound in the distance. I looked up. It must be the dinner time already, because I could hear the whistle. Oh, how I hated that ear-splitting sound—I loathed it. It was like they were screwing a nail directly into the flesh of my brain, especially after an electric-shock therapy.

Outside the small window, the sky was turning orange, urging me to go back to the common room for pre-dinner assembly. The library was in a better condition. Jude wouldn't say anything to this, I decided. I placed my note in the hole, before leaving there.

As I walked down the hallway, I struggled to keep a straight face. My fingers played with the old note in my pocket, and a tiny smile pulled the corners of my mouth upwards. The surface was crusty, like the type of paper I loved. I found myself biting my lip like a child.

In my mind, I re-played what I'd decided to write. I imagined how the white piece of paper might shine in the newly discovered hole. I imagined how it sat there, waiting to be read by somebody someday. I imagined how that someone would smile, and how they might even laugh at my handwriting.

 _-I'll hold on to the world tight someday. I've got one finger on it now; that's a beginning.-_

###

Cigarette smoke swam in the air of the common room, wrapping our bodies, slowly dying our clothes and skin ash-yellow. The grimy wall near the piano had another blood spot added to its collection. With the constant rhythm of Mrs. Tyler's head-banging, even Dominique had slight funkiness to its beat.

"Where have you been?" Kit Walker furrowed his brows at me as I sat next to him.

I sighed. The couch was old, but after moving around the library for hours, it felt like a queen's bed. "In the library," I said.

"There's a library?" he said, as he held a pack of cigarettes in front of me. I gave him a nod. "Why?"

"Jude wants me to organize that place." I took one out of the pack, and struck a match.—As I held it near the tip of the cigarette, I realized my fingertips were smudged with something black. Ink—I was playing with the letter in my pocket all day. I wiped it off on my sweater.

"But why?" His eyes narrowed. "What did you do?"

I shrugged. "Nothing. It's bullshit and Jude knows it." Cigarette ash floated as I flicked it above the ashtray. "She doesn't need the fucking place organized. There are literally only piles of Hollywood magazines. Nobody is interested to know what kind of food a German Hollywood star was obsessed with in the 70's. She's just doing this to me out of spite."

"How long do you have to do it?"

I shrugged again, and my greasy hair fell into my face. "Until the place is perfectly organized."

"How long do you think it'd take?" He creased his forehead.

"Depends on Jude's definition of 'perfectly organized.'"

###

It was probably my fifth or sixth visit to the library, that I began to suspect there was something cursed about that rat hole of a place. Even after hours of (imitation of) hard work, the place was somehow able to get dirtier and messier every time I came. The books I'd put alphabetically in shelves were disorderly. The mountains of books I'd sorted out by titles were lying on the greasy floor in shambles.

Someone might be out there to get in my way, someone like Jude. She must be involved in one way or another. But for what purpose? It was no other than the old crow of a nun who'd sent me on the mission. Or what if—the paranoid voice inside my head said—what if it was another attempt to drive me to deeper insanity? In fact, the deeper I got my feet in the swamp of madness, the better for her.

"You are not gonna get me that easily, you tramp," I said, suddenly feeling my competitive soul blaze.

Little by little, I began to repeat the monotonous work, which I'd been doing for weeks now. It was such a mind-numbing task. Organizing stuff was never my favorite thing to do, nor was I good at it.

My mother was just like this.—She was the kind of woman who found comfort in messiness. And never in my childhood had I seen her so enthusiastic about keeping the house clean. She only did it, so I wouldn't get food poisoning or lice.

To say my mother was an unconventional woman would be an understatement. She was always, without remorse or shame, ahead of her time. Creative, enthusiastic, and fierce. "Before I realized I was pregnant with ya, I wanted ta be a painter," she once told me in her distinctive Appalachian accent. "I still do. If ya're really passionate 'bout somethin', Lana, nothin' is an obstacle." She was a person of her own before she was my mother. I remember the smell of oil paints better than the smell of homemade food; the coarse texture of canvases better than the softness of fresh laundry; the dry sound of paintbrushes better than sweet lullabies. With my little world surrounded by such things, it'd never occurred to me, at that time, that this way of life was strange.

But it was, and in some narrow-minded people's eyes, it was something to be frowned upon, too. My father, like everybody else, found this shameful. He'd often yell at her, sometimes even throw things at her. One time he got so furious he threw her creations out of the house, and set them on fire. "Look at your daughter, not your stupid paintings," he said. "What ya're doin' is a disgrace, a huge taint on the name o' Winters. Why can't ya just be like every other woman and be normal?" And because of this incident, among many other things, I had come to despise him and despise the idea of 'normal'.

I had never looked back at my childhood and wished for a different life. My mother was always my greatest inspiration. She'd taught me the power of mind, and the power of defiance. She'd taught me that a single drop of paint on a canvas was enough to make change.—It was enough to enrage men, so it must be powerful, right?

There was one thing, though, that I regret about my life. And it was that she, the most artistic person on earth, failed to teach me the art of cleaning. She would use and create. She excelled at that. But I couldn't, for the life of me, remember my mother cleaning her pallet or washing her paint-covered overall. For that, throughout my childhood, and even in my adulthood, cleaning to me was a mere concept. Good thing I found Wendy, who found holiness in the very act of cleaning.

But I had to remind myself, Wendy was no longer, or perhaps was never, a goddess that I'd made her out to be.

Somewhere outside the library, there was a whistle. It knocked the stack of magazines out of my hands as I flinched, and they—goodbye to the minutes dedicated to sort them in order—scattered across the floor. I decided I was fed up with everything that was my life then, so much that no sound of irritation could go past my throat. Instead of picking them up, I glared at the books like they were the rebellious kids in Wendy's class.—I'd once met some of them, and as briefly as the encounter was, their smug, ignorant faces got under my skin.

 _Shit, Wendy. Not again._ It was not going to be so easy to get rid of the part of my life that was once my world.

Crouching down, I collected the rebellious magazines. "August '58 . . . October '58 . . . November . . ." I ran my fingers through the stack. "Where the fuck is June '59?" I searched for the missing volume, which, for mysterious reasons, had managed to fly across the place and rested against the wall near the door.

"Great." I walked towards it, cursing whoever decided to subscribe to it in the first place.

I bent forward to grab it, but before straightening up, I flicked my eyes to the wall. There was a hole, that small crack I'd discovered a while ago. How long ago was it, though? Even with my persevering hope for freedom, I didn't keep track of the date any longer. It easily could've been a month since Jude had held me against my will, or it might be only a week from that day.—Nobody knew, nobody bothered to know what day it was. In Briarcliff, where the inmates' lives were built on the base of monotonous routines, such information was merely another thing to worsen their depression.

I abandoned the magazines and Jude's nonsensical command, and knelt down before the hole. There was something inexplicable about it, like it was pulling me by the sleeve. It could be the exhilaration of having a secret, the feeling that resembled a sense of superiority. I was the chosen one.—I was Alice, and it was the rabbit hole I was looking in.

As my eyes narrowed to adjust to the darkness in there, I saw a piece of paper. I took it by its rim.

Since I was the library's only regular visitor, I hadn't really expected to see anything new. But, when the sunlight fell upon the crumpled, stained note, I could not help but strain my eyes. It wasn't the one I'd left the other day.

 _-You must be an angel, whoever you are. I hope you don't mind me taking your letter with me. I know it'll help me through the darkest days.-_

My heart drummed against my ribcage, and in my eardrums. I traced each letter with my fingertip, feeling the indentation. I scratched the inked surface, and it smudged the graphite lines. _Yeah, this is real._ Then I knew this wasn't a product of my hallucination.

But then, so what? The journalist part of me refused to just end this less-than-humble note exchange. There remained so many questions to be answered. _Who is this person? How long have they been here? Do they know who I am? And most importantly, what have they done to be trapped in this hell?_

Yet, another part of me, the part Jude's whip and fangs had touched in the slightest way, feared to sniff around for the sole purpose of finding the secret friend. I was not a tamed dog. But try as I might, I could not deny I'd learned to be cautious with my bottomless curiosity. All thanks to the old fiend in a habit. Don't trust anyone but yourself, and that included the mysterious person until proven otherwise. If I needed to start a personal project, nobody could know what I was up to.

So there was irony, a great contradiction in my ambitious scheme.—If my plan should remain unknown to everyone around, there was no way for the secret comrade to know someone was looking for them. The only way that could protect my identify, while continuing the exploration, was to keep the exchange going in hopes of some clues. Unlike outside the asylum, there was no inside source, no documents to give me a clue, no nothing. All I got in my hands was a 3-inch pencil.

"At least that's a start." I shrugged and took a pen out of my worn-out shoe.

 _-I am no angel, with no wings to fly out of this place. But I do have the eyes to see the light of hope. On your darkest nights, look at the moon. Remember I'll be looking at the same light as you.-_

The pencil ran across the paper like a fish in the water. The rush that ran down my spine reminded me of my true calling. That feeling of thrill and proud mixed together in a savory cocktail.—it was why I became a journalist. Chasing the truth was always my home, the fuel that drove me, something the torturous life had made me almost forget. And the memory of my home returned to my hazed mind at last. I wanted to go home.


	2. Chapter 2

The tip of my hair tickled my cheek as I lay on my bed. The blankets were soft and warm, with a hint of a rose perfume lingering in each thread. It was my favorite scent in the world, and the scent that never failed to make me feel protected. In the distance, the owner of the perfume was dancing and singing to some music.

"Wendy." I stretched my arms under the blankets. It felt so warm. "Baby, whatever you're doing, I bet it's no better than cuddling with me."

The voice, singing still, said, "Lana?"

"I'm right here, love," I said. I tried to open my eyes, but found they wouldn't listen to my command. My limbs became like rocks all of a sudden, the blankets cutting my skin like razor blades. "Wendy, baby, where are you?" I began to breathe heavily.

"Lana?"

"Help me." My voice cracked. "I can't see."

"Open your eyes, Lana."

And I did, gasping for air as though I'd been dead for years. The sudden intake of breath caressed the walls of my lungs, and came out as a fit of coughing. The gloomy brown common room replaced the darkness I was previously seeing.—the old Mexican lady was dancing to Dominique.

"Are you ok?"

I turned my head to the source of the voice. Kit looked into my face with knotted brows, his big hand squeezing my shoulder a little.

I let out another heavy breath. "Yeah, I must've fallen asleep," I said, sitting deeper in the couch. "Couldn't really sleep last night."

"Were you having a nightmare? It sure sounded like it." He lit a cigarette, though his stare stayed on me the whole time.

A dull pain spread inside my head when I gave him an ambiguous nod. "Maybe. I guess you can call it that."

My fingers shook slightly as I took a cigarette for myself. But instead of smoking, I spent several seconds staring at it, fiddling with it. It is hard to tell you what was on my mind in that moment. Perhaps I was trying to decide whether or not to smoke, which would be absurd if you think about it. But after that dream, my busy mind regarded every single action as a chore—even breathing.

At last, I struck a match and said, "Yeah, it was a nightmare."

Kit remained quiet, only turning his head away from me when he needed to exhale the smoke. His black eyes never left me, even when Pepper screamed and ran across the room with her favorite rag doll. He was expecting a more detailed description of my dream, I could tell as much—except it was the last thing I wanted now.

A whistle echoed, and he finally gave up his silent staring. "Speaking of a nightmare," he said, "I need to visit Arden this afternoon."

"Again?" I said.. "I thought he was done with you. What the hell does he want now?"

"Not a clue." He rubbed his eye with the heel of his hand, and let out a sigh. "All Jude said was that I was needed in his lab."

The cut Arden had given in his neck was still healing. I could see, even from a distance, some lurid white stiches in the center of the small black and blue.

"For what it's worth," I said, "it was generous of them to give you a heads up."

He smiled. "Suppose so," he said, fiddling with his cigarette. "At least I have a chance to tell people where I'm going. They'll know who to blame in case I never come back."

"Right."

I personally had never had the pleasure of visiting the chamber of the mad scientist. But I had seen him in distance a couple of times before. He might have known I was the journalist chasing the story of the missing inmates. He might not have. Whichever the truth was, his stare was cold, void of any kind of positive emotions. Before thrown into the mad house, I once interviewed a butcher, whose toneless voice could kill a person from boredom. Arden looked at the inmates the same way the butcher looked at chunks of meat. And if the butcher could remain unruffled while chopping meat with his huge knives, then—

The time might come sooner than we'd like, when we could no longer talk about Arden and mean it to be a joke.

"This place is sick, 'm so sick of all this." I shook my head, my jaw tightening. "No human should worry about their safety when they go to a doctor."

"To be fair, he's more like a scientist than a doctor." Kit snorted at his own sarcastic tone.

"Well, no human beings deserves to worry about being a—" I knew what word I was going to use, but it stuck in my throat.

"A . . . dead person?" Kit said.

"A genie pig, I was going to say." I looked down.

He repeated my word under his breath, seeing, I imagined, his own dead body in Arden's lab. "You're right." His voice had no lightness. "I'd be dead either way."

Although I didn't ask, I knew what he meant. He was thought to be Bloody Face, the most dangerous man in the state. The police were waiting for the result of his psycho-analysis—whatever that was—and everyone knew they would sweat bullets to see him dead.

I didn't know how to comfort someone like that, but couldn't bare to leave him alone in the silence. I put my hand on his shoulder and squeezed, just like he'd done earlier.

"Don't worry yourself too much." I forced a smile. "If they can't find the truth themselves, we will. We'll get out of here together."

He saw my pathetic attempt, and offered me a smile. "Thanks." Then he shook his head. "But there's no way out."

At that, I remembered. Something the electro-shock therapy had erased from my memory. The picture became clear now, and I almost laughed out loud.

"What if I said there was a secret passage?" I said to him.

He frowned. "Grace said there was nothing like that."

"She just doesn't know it. There is a tunnel in the basement. I came in through there."

"A tunnel?" His eyes gained light. "Are you serious?"

I nodded, and told him how I got here—finding Mary Eunice in the forest, threatening her to tell on Jude, and sneaking in through the filthy passage. With each word I said, his demeanor changed. I could feel every single one of his nerves focusing on my voice, what I told him. "All we need is to figure out how to get there," I said.

"Aright," he said, taking a deep drag on his cigarette, nodding as he waited everything to sink in. "Alright," he said again. "I think Grace can help. She should know something we don't."

I couldn't decide if it was a good decision. But Kit seemed to trust her.

"Where's she right now?" I asked.

"They took her to a hydro-therapy. Said she was going to be back by lunch."

So there was only waiting to do. We didn't even know what time it was, or how much we had until then.

Bringing the cigarette to my lips, I took a drag.—It only made a pathetic airy sound, and the rancid taste of dead tobacco flew down my throat. The fire had long been dead. The combusted tip had lost its fight against gravity. On my lap was a pool of ash.

.

A while later, the common room saw no change. Dominique, the old Mexican, the head-banging, the hollowness in everyone's eyes—the only change, perhaps, was that now Pepper was combing the hair of her doll in the corner.

I played with the things in my pocket—pills, a piece of bread as hard as a rock (so I could throw it at Spivey someday), and the letter from the invisible comrade. My fingertip slid along the edge of the paper, up and down. It could've cut my finger, but somehow the thought of it was enthralling. I wondered if they'd ever dreamed of escaping, if they'd ever made an attempt at it.

"What are you thinking?" Kit asked.

The idea of ignoring his question crept across my mind for a second, but I dismissed it quickly. "Do you think anyone here ever knows what that song's about?" I said, looking at the record player across the room. "What if it was actually a song about a donkey named Dominique? A pious donkey, maybe?"

"Seriously, Lana? Is that the best lie you could think of?"

I looked at him, and he raised his hand to his neck.

"You always put a hand on your throat when you lie," he said.

It suddenly made me aware of my body gesture, and I lowered my hand, gripping my inmate gown. My hope was that he'd sense my reluctance for a talk. I didn't expect him to actually buy my lie, but I had to admit, he was sharper than I thought. When our eyes met, he cocked his head, only slightly, as though to urge me for the correct answer.

"It's nothing." I scratched my head, hoping this gesture wouldn't give anything away. "I swear . . . I mean— It's not important."

"Does that concern us?" he asked.

"No." I shook my head. "It's just a personal thing. Won't do anything to you or anyone else."

Whether or not this answer satisfied him was unclear, but I found the idea of revealing every bit of my mind rather uncomfortable. He nodded a few times, and took another cigarette out of the pack. The weight of his thoughts was audible in the way his heels tapped on the floor. His brows knotted together as he gathered ashes, which had overflown the ashtray, in one place on the table.

It gave me an opportunity to study his hands. His fingers were coarse and thick, with a few scars here and there he must've gotten from his work. They were a man's fingers, like—like the complete opposite of the fingers which, I imagined, had written the letter in my pocket. I played with the edge of it again.

"Do you write, Kit?" I asked him.

He looked at me, looked around, and looked back at me. "Um, write? What do you—"

I shook my head and said, "You know what? Never mind." I fumbled with the match box to light another cigarette, contributing to the ever growing mountain in the ashtray. "Guess I'm thinking out loud."

Just as the tip of the cigarette touched my lips, the door creaked opened and, there, Mary Eunice walked in.

Pepper ran towards her and brought her doll in front of Mary, who patted her shaved head, as if she was treating a fragile porcelain doll. Pepper's excited voice drowned out a beat of Dominique. Mary's eyes blinked under the bridge of her blonde bangs. She murmured something to Pepper, before walking towards us. As soon as her eyes landed on Kit next to me, she faltered. Despite the relative distance between us, I could almost see the veins in her neck begin pulsating harder and faster.

"Mr. Walker— You ought to be in Dr. Arden's office," she said. "I thought Sister Rose had come to escort you already."

She looked around, biting her lip. Her fingers played with the crucifix in front of her chest, as though to pray for protection from Jude's reprimand. She seemed to be on the verge of tears, all kinds of scenarios for punishment going through her mind.

"Mr. Walker, you really should be seeing Dr. Arden right now."

"Ok, it's alright." Kit showed his palms to her as a sign of surrender. "I can go there on my own. It's not like this is my first visit." He quickly glanced at me before standing up. Her fear was obvious to him as well.

"Oh, but— I really shouldn't let you walk around alone, Mr. Walker. Sister Jude wouldn't like it." Mary knotted her brows, slumping her shoulders, still having a debate with herself. "But I suppose I have no other choice," she said at last.

"Why can't you go with him?" I asked.

Her eyes were wide as she shifted her attention to me, as if my _sudden_ appearance had startled her. And her grimace got bigger.

"Heavens, it almost slipped out of my mind—" She put her hand on her forehead, golden hair flattening underneath, and then moved it on her chest. "I can't go with Mr. Walker because I need to escort you, Miss Winters, to the bakery," she said.

I scrunched up my nose. "Me? Why?"

She saw my apparent dissatisfaction, and began to fidget even more. "Mr. Walker was supposed to be working an afternoon shift"—she glanced at Kit—"but, since he's unable to do so, Sister Jude assigned you to work on his behalf."

 _Of course, she did._

"Now, off you go, Mr. Walker," she said. "You don't want to keep Dr. Arden waiting."

She slightly turned her body to the door she'd walked through earlier. It was evident in her fidgeting that she was growing impatient by the second.—If she'd gotten the nerve, she might have even grabbed the collar of Kit's shirt and dragged him out of the room.

He looked down at me and said, "I'll make up for this later."

I shrugged and waved a hand. His figure disappeared behind the curtain of cigarette smoke, and then, behind the walls. Being left alone, staring into space was a wonderful option, I thought. But God forbid I ever rest my mind. Mary cleared her throat, the sound cutting through my self-induced comatose.

She intertwined her fingers in front of her as she straightened her back. Though mirroring Jude's authoritarian posture, it was still Sister Mary Eunice, who'd cry at the mere thought of being scolded.

"The same goes to you, too, Miss Winters," she said. "Everyone's already working. You shouldn't be here wasting time."

"Come on, sister. What's the hurry?" I leaned back in the couch and took a drag on the cigarette.

"I just told you, everyone's already—"

"I can knead dough for 10 rolls while they spit and bang their heads into it without actually contributing to the daily quota."

Her lips tightened at my words. "The fact that you work with others for the same goal is more important than the daily quota."

Really, her attempt to remain remotely defiant was pathetic, very much worth pitying.

"If you don't care about the quota, why do I have to fill his position?" I said, lifting my chin in the direction of the door. "I worked my shift there yesterday. Isn't that enough?"

It was obvious that she didn't have a satisfactory answer. I could even bet a million dollars—if I had such money, that is—that she'd rehearsed those lines before coming to me, aware that I'd talk back. The flaw in her plan, though, was that her imagination couldn't quite compete with my capacity. Such a silly girl.

Her lips parted, closed, and parted again. Then, she blushed as she really did look like on the verge of tears.

"I— Sister Jude said—" But she stopped there, ducking her head so low her chin touched her chest. Her tears were the last thing I hoped to see in Briarcliff.

"Fine. Sister Jude. Boo." I took a last drag.

The ashtray had a little version of Mt. Everest by then, quite on the edge of a massive landslide. I stuck my cigarette into it, rather stirring the pile up in order to get to the bottom.—I couldn't possibly stab that out on the table, could I? I have manners. In the process, though, a few butts and matches spilled over the edge.

Mary sniffed once and said, "That's not very nice, Miss Winters." Although her eyes were shiny, her cheeks remained dry.

I stood up and shrugged. The ash fell off my lap as I did so, joining the carpet of dead bugs and other mysterious things at the foot of the table.

###

The bakery was located in the west wing of Briarcliff Manor, and the common room in the east. The two places were connected by labyrinth-like corridors, so intricate there was even a myth that some inmates had gotten lost and never came back. It was just a myth, nonsense that one old lady—she claimed to have been in here for more than thirty years, and also believed that she was a member of a Russian royal family—had told me once. But the irony was that it didn't sound utterly nonsensical. People come and go, and in Briarcliff, the 'go' part didn't necessarily mean getting out.

There were stains and scratch marks all over the walls, the fresh scratches slightly lighter in color than the old ones. When I'd first snuck into this place as a free human, in the dark hallways, these horrid marks failed to catch my attention. But I did remember the smell of piss and blood that painted the murals of despair. And shit—literally—that Spivey threw at Mary's face. Had she never left me then, I might still have been in my suit, not this worn-out inmate gown.

As I followed Mary, I wondered if she'd ever gotten accustomed to this. This embodiment of hopelessness.

"How long have you been working here, sister?" My voice bounced against the low ceiling.

Her steps faltered for a moment, her head lower than it already had been. She did not turn around to look at me. "I'd—I'd rather not talk about my personal things," she said.

"Fair enough," I said. "What do you know about Dr. Arden's . . . work, then?"

"Sister Jude told me not to talk to patients about anything about this place."

"Patients? Are you sure she didn't mean me?"

My toes almost kicked her heel. Perhaps I was walking faster as my nerve built up. Her wavering voice and gait made me feel like a falcon towering over a turtle—quite bold. The familiar sensation from the good old days of ambitious journalism.

She responded to my question with silence.

"Why are you scared of me?" I said.

She stopped walking altogether, and finally turned around. Her eyes, as wavering as her posture, still avoided mine. "I beg your pardon?" she said.

"Are you scared of me because I might get you in trouble, or are you scared of catching my— How did Jude put it . . . inversion."

Her brows knotted together. " _Sister_ Jude, Miss Winters. _Sister Jude_ ," she said, fiddling with her crucifix.

"Why are you scared of me?"

"I am not. I'm— I'm—" She tightened her lips and took a deep breath.

Silence filled the hallway for a couple of seconds, as she seemed to stare into space. She might have been praying to God, for the strength and wit she didn't have to outdo me. Then she looked up.

"It's true Sister Jude has instructed me to be cautious with you," she said. "She has every reason to doubt my capability. I'm simple. I once let you manipulate me into sneaking you into this place when I shouldn't have."

I opened my mouth, but she kept talking.

"I am not scared of you, Miss Winters. I'm really not. But— I cannot make another mistake and disappoint Sister Jude." Her eyes bored into mine, unwavering.

They were this mixture of blue, grey, and green that resembled a verdant garden under a thundering sky. I forgot to breathe. Up until this point, I had never had a chance to closely study her face, or her eyes. In fact, it'd never occurred to me the color of her eyes could strike me like this. But there was something magnetic, I couldn't deny, about the way the ceiling lights swam in them, and I was presented with the possibility that she wasn't entirely the simple girl I considered her to be.

"You worship her like a god, though," I said.

The sparks in her eyes disappeared, the defiant shadow lost again. She knotted her brows, gripped the crucifix in front of her chest, as though to protect the sacredness of it from my appalling suggestion.

"The only one I ever worship is the Lord. Thou shalt have no other gods," she said.

"Still, you do anything she tells you to do."

"She's in charge of Briarcliff, the leader of us all." She took a step back, but didn't seem to notice her own action. "Every decision she makes is for the benefit of the Lord and the Monsignor."

Her eyes continued to avoid me, looking anywhere but.

"She canes you like you're one of us _sinners_ , doesn't she?" I took a step closer. "Do you think that's for the benefit of them, too?"

Her hand let go of the crucifix and settled on the habit around her hips instead.

"We are all sinners, whoever you may be," she said. "The whipping frees me of my sins."

"And it strips you of your dignity."

She turned her head away from me. "She does it out of love . . . and I love her just as equally."

"No, you don't." I shook my head, as a simple laugh fell out of my mouth. "It's not love. It's just attachment."

She looked at somewhere around my shoulder. "I'm sorry?"

"You're scared of her, perhaps more than you are of me."

"N—no," she said. The sole syllable almost died in her mouth and sounded like a simple puff of air.

"What's that?"

She cleared her throat. "I— No. I'm not scared of Sister Jude. I love her, and trust her, and—"

"If you love her like you say, why do you always flinch whenever she's near you?" I took one step to the side, trying to get in her view, but in vain.

She hung her head, her golden bangs blocking the light from the ceiling, casting a shadow on almost her entire face.

"You flinch, don't you know that?" I said. "But you hide your fear and try to act like you have nothing but love for her anyway."

This might not have been fair to her, as she was such a lost creature. But as I said, something in me was making me bold, perhaps somewhat belligerent, too.

"Love-deprived children tend to glorify their parents, make saints out of them no matter what, even if the parents are the reason for their misery. They can see it, but they hide away from the fact, because it's the only reality they know. They only know the pain, and the pain eventually becomes their core identity."

Her hand rose to the crucifix, stopped in midair, and hung down by her side.

"We don't call pain love, sister."

And then, she raised her face and stared at me. Stared and stared, not saying a word of protest or agreement. We stood in the cold corridor, so silent it felt like everyone in the world was dead, but us. Time stopped, but our hearts kept beating.—It was such a bizarre feeling. But somehow the lack of sounds was comforting, exhilarating, and encouraging. And there was that spark again, a glimpse of thunder, back in her eyes.

The tip of my fingers buzzed in anticipation for what she'd say next. _I wish I had a pen right now._

Yet, my excitement turned out to be short-lived when she looked down. She hung her head, in the same way she'd done many times. In front of me was the weak, lost, bewildered girl again.

She took a step back, before wiping her nose with the back of her hand. The hallway was rather dim, but I was certain that her hands were shaking slightly.

"Sister Jude wouldn't like it if you are any more late to work," she said.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Thank you all for reading and leaving reviews! May your 2017 be gayer.**

* * *

The sight of her shaking hands left something heavy inside my chest. Perhaps a sense of guilt. I didn't know—and still don't know—what exactly I was expecting to see after that, but the sight had shuddered me inside, and gotten me to sober up a little, from whatever was controlling me.

Everything was uncharacteristically quiet as I sat on my bed at night. No crying, no screaming, no head-banging, no bed-creaking, no bible-chanting. From time to time there were some kind of howling noises outside—wolves resided in the forest, they said—but other than that, the night was an embodiment of true serenity.

The moon was dazzlingly gorgeous outside my cell window, illuminating more than usual in the clear air of night. I'd always been a night person. There was a kind of beauty in the secrets the sky hid underneath its dark blankets. Loving the night to me was like loving a woman.

A heavy metal door opened outside my room. Along with footsteps, the sound of jingling keys put a halt to the silence, reminding me of the limited freedom I was granted in this place. They were going the nightly rounds. The moment the footsteps stopped in front of my cell, the walls of my cell became bright, and I squinted at the flashlight.

"Go to sleep, Miss Winters," the voice said, and walked away without waiting for my response.

But sleep sounded the least interesting thing to do on nights like these. Looking at the moon, I thought about my secret pen pal. I thought about the letters from them.—I hid them _inside_ my mattress. After Jude had found my notes in the pillowcase, I was forced to invent a new way of outsmarting her. I pulled a crooked nail out of a bookshelf in the library, and used it to cut a slit in the corner of the mattress, a tiny slit no longer than my pinky.

I'd told them to look at the moon.

Then, there was another noise right outside the cell, like someone or something touched the metal door. I waited for more, but there came none.

"Who is it?" I said.

No answer, though there was some movement, something similar to the rustling of clothes.

I glared at the dark. "I know you are there. What do you want?"

When my voice vanished in the air, the only sound left to be heard was silence. And then, when I was about to slide off the bed, a voice came,

"You shouldn't be up, Miss Winters."

The voice had a hint of trembling. I knew in an instant then, that it was Mary Eunice. Her husky voice was so distinctive there was no mistaking it.

"Hey, it's you," I said. I shot up from the bed and took four or five steps, and wrapped my fingers around the iron bars. Despite our closeness, her figure was still clad in darkness. "What are you doing up so late?"

She cleared her throat. "I'm— I'm making the rounds," she said.

"No, you're not." Despite the accusation, my voice was calmer, way softer than this afternoon.

"But I'm not—" she said. "It's not a lie."

"It _is_ a lie, and you know it." I smiled. "You people only need to do that three times during the night. Someone else already did the third rounds tonight, sister."

I heard her clear her throat again. The faintest light from outside the window fell on her blonde bangs, making them slightly visible to me.

"Sneaking another journalist in?" I said.

"No, I am not." The blonde hair swam in the dark as her voice frowned.

"Then what?"

"I was— I was simply making sure everything was fine."

"The answer depends on the definition of 'fine', doesn't it?" I said. "This is an asylum for the criminally insane. Some of us inmates are held against our will." I scratched an iron bar with my zig-zag-edged nail, covering the ground with pieces of peeled paint. "But, nobody is making trouble if that's what you mean. Everyone seems to be asleep, except for me, obviously." I shrugged.

Her head remained still as she stayed tight-lipped.

"And you, too," I said. "What's keeping you awake?"

"I was . . . thinking." Her voice sounded somewhat far away. Perhaps she had her head hung low.

"About what?" I asked.

She didn't give me an answer, the crucifix clattering in her hand instead. There was another howl outside the window.

"Were you looking at the moon?" she said at last.

I glanced at the largest star in the sky. "Yeah. Has a calming effect when I can't sleep."

"Why couldn't you sleep?"

Now, this was a question I wasn't expecting. Her relative eagerness for conversation was endearing. It made me bold, too, but not the kind of bold that was synonymous to _belligerent_. It was the kind of bold synonymous to _reassured_ , the feeling you get when you realize neither of you is _the desperate one_.

"Thinking, about stuff," I said. "Wishing for a person to talk to." I tapped lightly on a bar with my thumb. "Are you gonna keep me a company?"

It was a gamble, to ask her such a question. But as I said, I was feeling bold, and the silence I received from her made me even more so. I kept pushing, trying to see where the boundaries lay.

"If I get any more bored than this, I might actually start yelling or something to keep myself entertained," I said. "Stay with me, sister. What do you say?"

I thought she would go _Sister Jude wouldn't like it_ , as it was her favorite card. But instead she said,

"What if someone overhears us?" Then her voice got suddenly closer to my face, her breaths stroking my cheek. "Someone might be overhearing us now."

"Then get me out of here. We can go somewhere nobody is around."

She let out a trembling breath, took a step back, and played with her crucifix. "Oh, I don't know." I could see her shaking her head. "I—I don't think I can do that. I'm sorry."

Though I knew it was too much to ask of her, a part of me was still let down. Funny how that works. Even in a place as wretched as Briarcliff, one could still hold on to hope, or at least something that resembled it.

"Right . . . yeah, I knew that. I know that."

"I'm sorry," she said again.

I slowly let go of the iron bars, keeping the fingertips in touch with the cold, rusty door. As much of a downer as it was, I never wanted to make her think her answer had upset me by walking back to the bed too quickly.

So, I waited in front of the door, until her footsteps disappeared in the darkness.

I lay in my bed after the door in the corridor had closed. Closing my eyes, I tried to talk myself into going to sleep, tried to tell myself the little talk with Mary was more than I could've ever wished for. But I couldn't. The coils in the mattress screamed rather pathetically as I tossed and turned. If the conversation did anything at all, it made this silence more unbearable, this solitude more painful.

And then, there was another set of footsteps echoing out in the corridor. The heels clicked against the concrete ground at a fast tempo, though the steps were kept relatively muted. It sounded as though the person was on a covert mission which required quick action.

 _A busy night for someone._ I rolled over once more and sighed, folding my arm under my head. Then, a few seconds ticked away, and I opened my eyes. In silence. Everything was quiet, just the way it'd been for the past several hours. None of the quick footsteps. I thought my insomnia had fooled my ears. But the sound of jingling keys, accompanied by a hesitant cough, at my cell door proved me wrong—or rather, proved my ears right.

Though no word was spoken, I knew it was Mary. For whatever reasons, she'd come back. She waited until I was standing on the other side of the door, and with a cautious click, she unlocked it. In the heavy sound of the door opening, I heard a wave of the sea of infinite possibilities. It was Mary who opened it, but in that moment, the sensation and rush of it all made me feel like I was Moses, dividing the sea to clear a path to my future.

I took a step forward, and she put her hand on my forearm, gently pulling me out of the cell.

"Only this time," she said. "Just—promise me that you won't try to run away." Her grip on my arm tightened for a split second.

"I promise." I nodded, though I doubted she could see.

We walked without a word as I let her guide me through the long ward. Neither of us even dared try to open our mouths. As though there was a mutual understanding not to speak, until we were absolutely safe from potential eavesdroppers. She was wary, almost neurotic. A few times, something made a noise—the wind knocking on the windows, old doors creaking, someone snoring, what have you—and each time she would look around, and walk with more deliberation.

The door at the end of the corridor closed behind us. She finally stopped, leaned against the door, and took a deep breath. Her breathing had a tremor in it, and I could almost hear her teeth clatter. The lighting was kinder to us here in the entrance hall, where the skylight let moonlight in. We were standing on the second floor, near the _Stairway to Heaven,_ and below us the statue of the Virgin Mary illuminated, eerily. I looked at Mary.—For the first time that night, I was able to see her face, in the dim light. Her lips were tight, her brows drawn together, veins in her neck pulsating —quite identical to her typical look in distress, only with more intensity. But the hand that held the keys did not tremble.

She met my stare, and I swore there was the enigmatic part of her, re-emerging before me again. Her eyes glowed as if to say, _And now what?_ I smiled at her.

"What?" she asked.

"You surprised me back in there." I gestured at the path behind the closed door. "In a good way, though. A good surprise. I never expected you to actually let me out."

"That was what you wanted, was it not?"

"Yeah, so . . . thank you."

Her posture seemed to soften as she nodded her head. With her little grimace lingering between her brows, she looked about. I mimicked her, and wandered to the rail for a better view of the downstairs. Artificial light was absolutely absent in the hall, it turned out. All the lights—at the entrance door, in the guard room—were out. It didn't look or sound like there was anyone awake—or alive—in here, and it gave me a fleeting thought that I was looking over a graveyard.

I turned around, and saw Mary reaching to put her hand on my arm. When our eyes met, she hesitated, but did grab me anyway.

"Hey, can we go outside?" I asked, resisting her gentle pull. "I'm assuming we're not chatting right here."

"No, but—"

"If we need to move, I want to go outside and look at the sky."

She looked at the grand door over my shoulder, but shook her head. "No, it's not a good idea . . ." she said, with her brows knotted together. "I thought you could see the sky from your window."

"I'd like to be able to take deep breaths and not smell piss while admiring the moon," I said. "Please? Just a little would do."

"No, I can't let you do that, Miss Winters. I really can't." Her eyes pleaded, as if she was the one demanding the impossible. "I'm sorry, but it's not safe outside."

I sighed as I looked down. "Right. There're wolves out there."

"Wolves?"

"Or coyotes."

She grimaced, and glanced at the door again.

"Whatever they are, I heard them howl several times," I said. "They must be quite near us."

Then, she began to fidget all of a sudden, before pulling me by the arm again. "This way," she said.

"Where are you taking me?"

No answer was offered, though I couldn't be sure whether or not it was deliberate. She seemed incredibly focused as she led the way. Perhaps we should make the no-talking-while-walking rule official.

Going to the other side of the hall, we descended stairs from there.

As we did so, I felt déjà vu.—I had held her hand before. I had seen the back of her veiled head, had followed her, and had looked over the hall from above. Before. But not so long ago. The day I met Briarcliff for the first time, was the day she took a rose from my grip, on this very staircase. I was wearing my favorite green suit back then, not a decrepit hospital gown.

Oh, how I wished I could just walk right out of the door, just the same way I'd walked in. How I wished the thorns of the rose Pepper gave me had been sharp, enough to make me turn around and go home to Wendy. It seemed so easy.

But Mary walked past the door, and I had no choice but to follow her.


	4. Chapter 4

The chapel was located in the back of the entrance hall, behind the Virgin Mary and below the _Stairway to_ _Heaven_. Hidden, almost as if the architect who designed the building knew what the place was about, what atrocities it'd witness. Secluded, as if the architect was ashamed of the part of the building. I'd never knew it existed. In fact, the door was so camouflaged with the wall and shadows around it, that you'd see nothing unless you looked up close. The chapel, the only reminder that the asylum was built and managed in the name of the Lord.

I stood in the door way, on the opposite side of the big cross, where Jesus Christ bowed his head. The faint moonlight came through the large windows, which was enough for my eyes to observe the place.

"I must admit," I said, "I'm having a hard time believing you actually brought me in here."

Mary turned around. "I beg your pardon?" Her voice, even in a murmur, echoed.

"A gay person here in your, what, holy place, sanctuary." I spoke in a quieter tone. "Right? I thought you hated that stuff."

She thought for a second. "I firmly believe that our door should be open to everyone, regardless of who they are. We offer shelter and bread to murderers and thieves. I don't see why we shouldn't do the same to homosexuals."

She turned her face towards one of the decently big, non-tainted windows. The light shone upon her golden bangs, and in her eyes, the moon gave stars. As she walked, the thick carpet on the aisle muffled the clicking of her heels.

I followed and sat beside her, at a safe distance, on one end side of the third row from the front.

"Besides," she said. "I only brought you here because this is the only place you could see the sky in peace."

She looked at the moon again, and I followed her gaze. It seemed, somehow, a bit smaller and further, than the moon I remembered. They say the skies get higher in autumn.—I'd never really understood why people think that. But, right now, after weeks of captivity, it really did look high.

"Does Jude share the same sentiment?" I asked. "About sheltering gays, I mean?"

"I don't know." She shrugged with her gaze on her fingers, fiddling in her lap. "I hope she does, but even if she doesn't, it doesn't change how I feel."

The wolves howled again.

"You're full of surprises, you know that?" I said. "One moment you are this little blind, helpless puppy, and another blink, and you are an entirely different girl when I least expect it. Someone who's a little more . . . rebellious, letting me out of my cell, brushing Jude off and whatnot."

Her eyes locked with mine, sort of weary, sort of dispirited.

"I like it. I'm not accusing you of anything, okay?" I said. "I like the sparks, the fire in you when you drop all the benevolent façade and just _glare_. It gives you humanness, I think."

"I don't glare."

"You did with me, in the bakery this afternoon. You wouldn't stop glaring at me after I . . ." _After I blatantly called you an emotionally neglected child._

The picture was fresh in my memory. Her eyes flared, like one of those paintings that seem to follow you whenever you move. She looked at me and me only, relentlessly, poor bread dough enduring her excessive attention. "May I offer to upgrade your eye-fucking to a three-way?" Spivey's vulgar laugh barely reached my ears.

She didn't come close to me during the shift, or after it, but I could feel her heat even across the room, burning my skin at an excruciatingly slow rate. She was like the winter sun.

I ran my fingers through my greasy hair. "I was thinking about you tonight, what I said to you."

She looked down. I thought I saw her grip on the crucifix tighten.

"It was unfairly harsh," I said, "and unnecessary. Unnecessarily harsh." I sighed, and it resonated in the deserted chapel louder than I'd expected. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said those things just because I could."

Her eyes rose from her lap, and stared at me, wide-eyed, but not quite in the same way as her _glaring_. Perhaps, the same staring when she found me—or I found her—in the woods the fateful night. Baffled, bewildered, as she stared.

"I hope you forgive me," I said. "But I understand if you don't want to."

Then, the corners of her lips turned upward slightly, as though she was trying to determine whether to smile or not. "You are . . ." She bit her bottom lip. "Full of surprises, Miss Winters."

I gave an innocuous tilt of my head.

"I never imagined I'd occupy your mind like that." she shook her head. "I never imagined you'd care about me like that."

"I'm not as conceited as you might think."

She laughed—actually laughed—with her cigarette-stain-free teeth illuminating in the dark, shrugging her shoulders, ducking her head a little, as if she was being tickled. It wasn't loud or carefree, though, like a baby would do. Instead, it was the kind of laugh that echoed _inside_ you, pulled a gentle grin out of you. Irresistible and radiant.

I realized, it was the first time she ever smiled in front of me.

"Yes, I know that now," she said.

I raised my brows. "So you admit you thought me arrogant?"

She tightened her lips, and allowed the silence to take over for a second or two. I saw her eyes stare into space. They were blank, as she seemed to immerse herself in recollection.

"At first, I did." Her voice was soft. She turned her head away just a little. "The way you sniffed around, and the way you continued to act like you owned the world even in your hospital gown . . ."

"Well, Superman is still Superman without his cape."

She gave a tiny smile, reserved. Her hand rose to toy with her crucifix again. "You're right," she said. "But I was so foreign to your kind that I don't think I was seeing things without any prejudice."

"My kind? Gays, you mean?"

There was hesitation, and her gaze slowly drifted away. "Confident people," she said, "is what I meant . . ."

"Oh."

"But, I can't deny that it troubled me, too. Your . . . sexuality. I regret my shallowness now, because you were so much more than the one simple word."

"It's nice to be reduced to your sexuality once in a while." I shrugged my shoulders. "You get to be locked up in an insane asylum if you're lucky."

She smiled and grimaced simultaneously, which made her appear to be on the verge of tears. But there were no tears in her eyes, as she took a slow, deep breath. "How could you stay so confident? Where does it come from?" It sounded like she was just talking to herself.

"It's just who I am, I guess," I said.

Her eyes rose, and met mine. Just for a split second. "I envy you," she said. "I wish I had a fraction of what you have."

"It's never too late."

"But I don't know how to." She shook her head, her voice wavering. "I never learned to be that way."

 _I love your cocky attitude, Lana, but you make me feel painfully inadequate._

Wendy, who owned my heart for the last five years, was such a frail-souled woman. Problems—tiny inconveniences I wouldn't exactly call such—used to upset her. At least once a month, I'd find her sobbing in distress, crumpled tissues in her hand, in the bed. She'd have a thick blanket covering her tousled mocha hair and the rest of her thin figure, like it was her fortress.

It was job-related issues more often than not. Men made advances to her as soon as they learned she wasn't seeing any _man_ , absolutely oblivious to the reality inside the closet. Women offered their sorry smiles, as she revealed her _singledom_ , and proceeded to set up blind dates for her. Her reluctance was mere shyness in their eyes. And kids—the little demons in her precious class—did what kids do. Mimicked their adults, without much awareness of the toxicity of their words.

I think that's what got her the most, the kids. She loved them like her own.

"C'mon, honey, you know better than to listen to those morons," I one day said, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear. "They are nothing. They're like those nameless villagers in Shakespearean plays who have no purpose other than to fill the empty spots. And you— You're the Portia, you're the Beatrice, you're the Viola."

And Wendy sniffed once, raised her eyes to me, and said—

"You were right, Miss Winters," Mary said.

"About what?"

She ducked her head. Behind her the stars were disappearing outside the window, the high redbrick walls re-emerging on a white-blue canvas of sky. Birds took off from one of the high trees. And as they did, Mary sighed. I saw her eyelashes tremble.

"About you— About me being afraid of you," she said. "From the moment I first saw you. I was— There's something about you . . . so many things I don't have, I can't have." She drew a deep breath. "You exist, and somehow the world starts to exist for you."

"I'm not sure if I follow."

Dry laughs escaped her lips. "I'm not making any sense. I'm so sorry."

"No, don't be." I sat up so I could look into her face. "Keep talking, maybe I can keep up."

"Oh, but it's boring. I don't want to bother you."

I tried to hold her hand, or wrap my arm around her shoulders. Something. I don't know why. All I knew was that somehow I felt like she needed it. Some kind of physical contact. To feel the warmth of another person's skin. But part of me feared, if I ever did touch her, she might assume there was a non-innocent intention.

So, I kept my hands in my pockets, and told her it was nonsense. Whatever her story was, it was surely more interesting than having to listen to Dominique on end. Then, although she remained doubtful at first, she began to speak, a sentence at a time, sorting out her thoughts as she went.

"I was an accident," she said. "That's what she used to tell me when I was a child."

"Who is _she_?"

"My biological mother. My parents didn't want me, they weren't married to each other. As I grew up, she never told me anything else about my father. Then, she died when I was twelve, and I was sent to Pen state to live with my father. And his wife. And their daughters."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

She smiled. "They changed my last name to theirs, so I wouldn't feel left out." She shook her head. "I was Mary Eunice Bishop until I was seventeen." Her voice got one octave higher, as though it was the most ridiculous name ever.

"Were they ever mean to you?"

She paused, lifting her head, staring in the vague direction of the pulpit. "They were genuinely the kindest people I'd ever known. So different from the mean step-family archetype. They did everything they could to make me feel comfortable in their house."

"Their house . . . but not your house?"

She looked at me, with her wide eyes, and remained silent like that. I could hear her inner voice repeating my words, over and over again, trying to make sense of them. She moved her head slightly, but didn't quite give me a nod or a headshake.

"You never felt home," I said.

"Kindness isn't always the same thing as love," she said. "Sometimes, kindness without love can be stifling." Then she hung her head, like she was ashamed, of her own words, of her life. "I always wished I could go back to being a McKee, even if I stayed an orphan."

For the first time, I felt sorry for her.—I'd felt _sorry_ for her, for her naiveté. I'd had pity on her. But it didn't prick my heart then, not like this.

"You're a McKee now, aren't you?" I said.

She gave a nod.

"Do they know you are here?"

She shook her head.

"Did you run away?"

She, this time, nodded slowly. "I stayed there for five years. I wish I'd come here sooner."

Five years is such a long period of time, too long to spend feeling like you're a burden on someone's shoulders. It's a unique kind of guilt, feeding off your insecurities, infecting the very core of who you are. It consumes you. It becomes you. An inevitable spiral, with a death grip around your wrist as it drags you down the drain. And at the bottom of it for her was this hellhole, another drain waiting to swallow her whole.

"How long have you been here?" I asked.

"Almost five years," she said.

Her eyes darted to the world outside the window. She took a sharp breath, and the ghost of the sound disappeared down her throat. The blues of the sky were becoming brighter by the minute. There would be no clouds in the sky today. I studied her face, and wondered what her eyes were seeing. The birds, the trees, the white reflection of the sun on the walls—or the last five years flying by in front of her.

"Another five years of—" she gave me her frowny smile— "love-deprivation."

I hesitated. "You know I only said that to spite you."

"But you were right," she said. "I never felt truly loved. You didn't know the details of my life, but you still saw through me."

I wished I was a better liar, but I wasn't. There was no room for halfhearted solace, and even if there was, I didn't think that was what she was looking for.

I stared down at my feet that rested under the seat in front of me, clicking my toes like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. But my shoes were neither red nor sparkly, nor did they magically bring me home. They were originally white, with yellow and grey stains of God-knows-what. They were already like that when they'd handed them to me, which eloquently told how much they cared about inmates' sanitation. I wondered how many people had worn them before me, and what became of them.

Mary's black heels moved out of the corner of my eye. I looked up. She was standing and looking down at me with _that stare_.

"I need to get you back to your cell," she said. "People will be up soon."

"So soon? I thought we had more time."

I stood up anyway, walking sideway like a crab between the two rows of seats, stopping once I reached the aisle. Her unblemished hand slid across the backrests, as she walked in the same manner, steadying herself.

"Yes, but look, this is what you wanted, isn't it?"

"What do you mean?" I said.

"You said you were bored, and—" She abruptly tightened her lips, and gawked at her hand on a chair. "I mean, I wasn't bored, talking to you. But I obviously cannot speak for you."

I smiled at that. "You kept me quite entertained."

"Really?" Her eyes looked up at me through her bangs, as she chewed on her lip. "But I was only talking about myself. How could that be entertaining?"

"Sure, it wasn't exactly what I expected," I said. "But I'm glad you did, y'know?"

"You are too nice, Miss Winters." She smiled her sad smile again.

I stepped closer to her. "It was more than I could've ever wished for," I said. I lifted my chin in the direction of the door. "God knows I would've spent the rest of the night staring at the ceiling in my bed if it wasn't for you."

Then, soft chuckles escaped her lips. "I thought you didn't believe in God."

And I found myself looking at her with the same smile as hers. "Well, look at you, smartpants, pulling my gay leg for the heck of it."

Her giggles slowly died down. She looked down, as her fingers fidgeted. But her smile remained there, the light of early morning falling upon her face, making her look like a real-life statue of the Virgin Mary.

"Thank you, Miss Winters."

 _For what_ , I didn't know exactly, but I nodded anyway.

She turned around and opened the door. We walked down the soon-to-be-busy halls, obeying the no-talking rule. Although the sunlight was illuminating the vast place, it looked no less depressing or menacing. The light only created darker shadows. Even on the statue of the Virgin Mary.—She looked as though she was judging us, in silence, telling me that I had been _seen_.

Mary Eunice didn't so much as to glance at me. She hung her head, shrinking her shoulders, tensing up even at the sound of her habit rustling. And when we got back to my cell—the ward was still dead quiet—she finally looked up. The sparks were gone with the night.

I let the weak, helpless girl lock the door.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: I hate editing, but I'd hate myself even more if I didn't. :)**

* * *

The following day was, in a way, nothing out of ordinary. The fleeting sensation of freedom I'd had last night was gone, only leaving me with sleep deprivation. I couldn't sleep after coming back to the cell. I just stared at the wall, and replayed the conversation, Mary's words, over and over in my head. And every time her sad smile came flashing back, I felt an overwhelming flood of emotions. The secrecy of it made me proud, but the sorrow of it made me ashamed. Ashamed of myself, my journalist self, wanting to see more of the tragic side of the girl.

So, as I went on with my day, I couldn't decide how to behave around her, if she ever saw me. Should I smile, or should I pretend nothing had happened? It was a constant struggle of internal debate. I wished to see her, and at the same time, wished to stay away from her. And at the end of the day, her absence relieved me, as much as it disappointed me. I still waited for her in my cell, until dawn, in case she ever decided to talk to me again.

This continued for three days.

I entered the common room with a pounding head. My steps were wobbly. Everything was a bit out of focus, blurry and ringing. My eyes met with those of Mrs. Rivers—or so I thought—as she continued to walk from one corner to another to another. Her grey hair was tousled like she'd been in a massive explosion of a sort, her legs threatening to surrender.

Quite like me. The person I was seeing could easily be me in the future.

I turned my head around, and saw Kit and Grace, sitting in our designated area. They were already looking at me. Kit, with a cigarette between his lips, held out a pack of them, raising his brow at me. I staggered, but managed to collapse into the armchair in front of them.

"You ok?" Grace asked. She pointed at me—at the burn scars on my temples.

The electroshock therapy was no different today. The same intensity, the same duration.—But the effect it had on me, it was more severe. Perhaps, it had something to do with the amount of sleep I had last night.

I shrugged. "I'm not dead."

Kit leaned into me. "Grace found this hidden in one of the empty cells." He showed me the cigarette pack. "You want one? They kinda taste stale, though."

"I'll be selective when they get a tobacco machine in here," I said. And we all knew such a thing was never welcomed in Briarcliff. I took one out of the crushed pack. It was Marlboro, but with a package design I'd never seen. It must be quite old, and true to his words, tasted like a grandpa's house. "God, this is rough," I said.

"Tell me about it." Grace gave me a lopsided smile, taking a deep drag, as if she'd gotten used to the flatness of the flavor already.

"What were you doing in the empty cell, anyway?" I asked.

The question was for Grace, but next to her, Kyle got restless all of a sudden. Grace paused to think, looking down at her toes, while he rubbed his cigarette out despite it being still freshly lit, taking another out right after. She threw him a look, and even in my hazed state, I just _knew_. I wouldn't get any credit, though. It was that obvious, so much _I_ was embarrassed.

"We were looking for some place quiet to talk," Grace said.

It was hard to tell if she was lying through her teeth on that one. I mean, practically speaking, you can still talk while doing _it_ , or before or after.

"Yeah, we were just talking." Kyle said.

"Alright." I shrugged.

It bothered me that they lied to me. It concerned me that they thought I wouldn't see through it. But, their relationship was none of my business. By then, my headache had gotten better, but the burns on my temples still stung. I sunk into the armchair, massaging around one of the scars with the heel of my hand, reminding myself to breathe.

"So, we were talking about the—um," Kyle said. He kept his voice low, so some part of his speech quite didn't reach my ringing ears and dumbed brain. It was something about the tunnel, something about escaping through it.

I ran my eyes over the room. Sister Rose was making an infertile attempt to talk Martha out of banging her head against the wall. One of the guards stood in a doorway, with a deep frown, his arms crossed in front of his chest. A nameless sister was in a heated battle of chess with Mr. Bader, who soon flipped the board and began to throw a fit. Pepper entered the room, showing off her twirling skills to the guard, hand-in-hand with her rag doll. But there was no sign of—

"Lana!" Kyle said. "Are you listening?"

"Are you sure you're really ok?" Grace leaned in toward me. "You don't look so well."

If you think about it, it's such a ludicrous question, irony dripping from it.—No living human could look _alright_ right after an electroshock therapy. They had fried my brain on and off for ten minutes. That was my life here, and she knew it. And yet, she had the nerve to ask me such a question.

"Insomnia," I said. I pinched the bridge of my nose, and closed my eyes for a second.

"You're taking sleeping pills, aren't you?" She meant the pills they gave every inmate after dinner, so we wouldn't disturb their tranquil night.

"Have you guys seen Sister Mary Eunice lately?" I said instead.

They glanced at each other, surprised and perplexed by my question that seemed, to them, out of the blue.

"Haven't seen her for the last couple of days as far as I remember," Kyle said. His gaze was intense on me, as though he itched to resume the earlier discussion.

"It's not unusual of her, though." Grace said, as she took a drag. "She sometimes kind of disappears."

"What do you mean, disappears?" I said.

She shrugged. "I mean literally. Shelly has seen her leave the property many times before. She goes, and doesn't return for some days."

"Where does she go?"

"Not a clue."

"She lives here, though, doesn't she?"

"Yeah, with other sisters," she said. "Maybe she needs to go to the town to run errands for Jude?"

I thought about it for a while. "Yeah, it sounds convincing," I said.

Kit, who had been bouncing his leg, leaned towards me. "Are you done talking about her?" There was a little bit of sarcasm, and a lot of impatience in his words, his posture, and his facial expression.

"For now," I said.

"Okay, so—" He flicked his cigarette. "About the tunnel."

But before he could utter another word, Sister Rose came to stand in front of us. Her eyes, from behind her ridiculously thick glasses—the kind of glasses that made eyes appear bigger—looked down at me. "Sister Jude wants you in her office now," she said with her frail voice.

Kit and Grace shot me an identical look, a silent question as to what I'd done. We could talk about the secret tunnel later on, their eyes told me. I nodded towards them, and did the same towards Sister Rose, who then turned around to walk with me.

###

The door of Jude's office always looked like a gate to hell, standing in the most silent place in the building. Rose knocked on it three times. She glanced at me as she did so, like it was too unbearable to spend another moment with me just glaring at nothing.

And a deep voice, muffled by the wooden barricade, answered, "Come in."

I couldn't tell what kind of mood she was in. She always sounded pissed or annoyed anyway. Perhaps, there were enough reasons to be pissed all the time, especially when you are in charge of insane _patients_ —they insisted on calling us such, instead of inmates.

"Come in," she said again, louder this time.

"Go in, Miss Winters." Rose gave me another look, and pushed the door open for me.

Jude was sitting at her desk, scribbling something. Everything was set straight—her back, the document, the two neat stacks of papers on her left side. Even the creases between her brows had no curves. The brown wooden surface of the desk gleamed, as if not a single particle of dust was on it. Absolutely nothing else was permitted to be out of the drawers in the instant, it seemed. As a journalist, I thrived in the oceans of documents (and packs of cigarettes), and could not fathom how she could get any job done in such a sterile environment.

"You wanted to see me?" I asked after stopping beside the chair.

My insomnia decided to control my body right then, and I knew I was barely functioning as a human being. And plus the electroshock therapy every other morning. The idea of sitting down sounded enthralling. Yet, the commandments said _Thou shalt not do anything without Jude's permission._ And _Thou shalt not fall asleep on her_. And even if it wasn't stated in the commandments, it certainly wasn't a smart move for a mouse to fall asleep in the same cage as a cat. I dug my nails into my palms, and bit the inside of my cheek, keeping myself on my toes.

Jude's eyes never rose, never acknowledged my presence. The pen in her hand moved across the paper as stagnantly as a snail, quite literally dotting the i's and crossing the t's. Whatever the document was, it couldn't have required such excessive precision, unless it was her calligraphy homework, which obviously wasn't. It was one of her many ways of sustaining her power. In Briarcliff, even simple actions like sitting down or standing up were decided at her will, as clay in the hands of the potter. And boy, did she enjoy it.

"Sit down," she said at last. She waved her pen, still not looking up.

I did, and stared at her, boring a hole in her wrinkled face. Seconds ticked away, and a minute, and another minute. I had no idea why she wanted me here. There was nothing that could get me in trouble—except, the secret sneak-out between Mary and me. Could it be that? I felt my heart beat faster, my palms sweat, my throat dry. I suddenly ached for her order to stand up.

At last, she clicked her pen, putting the paper away in the drawer. The sound of it sternly shut closed filled the air.

"It has come to my attention that," she said, "you haven't been complying with my orders." She braced her elbows on the table, fingers intertwining in front of her face.

"What orders?"

"The library," she said.

The library, not the Mary Eunice thing. I heaved a sigh of relief, only on the inside.

"What about it?" I said.

"I took a look this morning and quite frankly, I couldn't see if any change has been made. Stacks of books here and there, crumpled pages covering the floor." She waved her hand above the flawless desk, as though to say such impeccable cleanness was, in fact, _not impossible_ to achieve. "Did you think I allotted the job to you so you could play around all day like a dog owned by a wealthy family?"

I kept my head high. "The collection of books in there is larger than you imagine, sister."

"Oh, please let me assure you I know." She stood up and stepped around the desk, resting her hip against the edge, as she towered over me. The space between us was small now. Her knees could touch mine if she took another step forward. "I've known this place for more than a decade. Indeed, I was once responsible for the library myself. The number of books and magazines were increasing by the week at that time, but I was still able to keep them in order. I fail to see why it's any different for you."

"I'm subjected to electroshock therapy every other day."

"Your point? You've been here long enough to know there are not so many things I hate more than beating around the bush."

 _Indeed, I have, because you wouldn't let me leave._ "It numbs my body and mind, as intended. I can only do so much by myself when I'm only given so little time. It's not like I can walk around freely as I please."

A corner of her mouth turned upward, her right eye narrowing. "What exactly are you implying?"

"Nothing," I said. "All I'm saying is that I'm not slacking. If you have any suspicion, then you can get someone to watch me while I work."

For some moments, she continued to stare at me in silence. The smug self-righteous lopsided smile never faltered, as though my soft rebellion amused her. Daring me, so she could have one more reason to punish me.

"They are far busier than you might think, Miss Winters," she said. Then she began to walk back to her chair, taking a file out of the drawer. She looked at me for the last time, and waved at the door. "Go. I made my point clear."

###

Despite Jude's warning, I looked into the hole in the library before anything. Waiting until the end of the duty sounded like a boring idea, and also a risky one.—If you want something, work to get it as soon as possible. Because you never know what might happen while waiting. Someone might get it before you, or someone might lock you away.

The little note greeted me from between the crack. I reached for it, but faltered when it was in my hand. It seemed similar to the one I'd left. I had a fleeting worry that, perhaps, it was not from my friend. I sat down on the floor, leaning against the wall, as I fidgeted with the note. When I half-opened and peeked into it, I heaved a sigh of relief.

 _-I think you don't need wings to be an angel. But maybe in this place, staying a human might be the holiest thing, for the devil was once an angel._

 _Forgive my reluctance to reveal my identity, and please believe me when I say you're the savior in my misery.-_

"Staying a human…"

I felt breathless somehow, reading it over and over. What a morbid thing it was, but beautiful at the same time, beyond description. I wished I was the one who'd come up with it. It was a feeling akin to disappointment, I suppose, something like a sense of inferiority. But it made me giddy with exhilaration, too, that I shared the same air as them. To know this person was living under this roof, and breathing the same air, comforted me.

It was then that I decided I'd find who this person was, at any cost. It was the moment mere curiosity turned into a strong resolution.

I grabbed a movie magazine out of the nearest shelf, flipping the pages for a suitable page to tear off. I found an overtly sexist black-and-white ad. It had a large margin, so I cut the edge into a rectangular, making sure to tear the man's face in the ad into two in the process.

But with a pen in my grip, nothing came to my mind. One of the worst nightmares for writers. It wasn't a writer's block, though. I could come up with things, an abundance of words and sentences. But my brain was a mere chunk of muscle, my abilities were finite.—Everything seemed too simple, too _human_. I could stay a human, if the invisible poet wanted me to. It was one thing, my words being human was another. The latter was unbearable. Words are a sacred thing, they shouldn't be ordinary, like mortal humans.

So, I spent the rest of the time in the library thinking, while tidying up the place. The blank note sat on the table, shimmering white in the sunlight. I imagined my friend standing there, writing with their dainty fingers, thinking about me. In that moment, I mattered to them, and they to me.

When the sky darkened, I re-read their letter one more time. Then, I wrote,

 _-Oscar Wilde said that you have to give a man a mask in order to know who he really is. I'd like to believe this was how we were meant to meet each other, through the masks of letters. I don't seek an apology, but the words of your mind.-_


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Hi, everyone! Firstly, thank you for reading and leaving comments/reviews. Every single word you write for me makes me happy. Secondly, the last couple of days have been quite rough for some people, me included. This is not the most cheerful chapter, but I hope this can offer you solace at least.**

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Raindrops hit the window of my cell, wet leaves stuck to it. The walls felt, smelled, sounded, and seemed colder without moonlight. (Incomplete description with five senses. Too bad I didn't taste the walls.)

The beginning of winter was around the corner, and the sad excuse of a blanket wasn't sufficient to keep myself warm at night. I cluttered my teeth, as I pictured Jude wrapped up in silky blankets, in a bed that didn't have bedbugs. The wrinkles between her brows must be smoothed out in serene sleep.

I missed home, missed the warmth of my bed, perhaps with the warmth of another human's body.

My brain decided to play Dominique on repeat. I tried to drown it out with another song of my choice. And by _my_ choice, I mean _my brain's_.

 _Venus, if you will_

 _Please send a little girl for me to thrill_

 _A girl who wants my kisses and my arms_

 _A girl with all the charms of you_

"No, not this song."

There were two songs in the world I couldn't stand. One was Dominique, for obvious reasons. The other was this. And now two of them simultaneously assaulted me, while insomnia and the cold kept me awake. There was nothing more miserable than this.

"Go to hell, Venus," I said.

"Not a fan of Venus?" a voice abruptly said next to me.

I turned my head around, legs hanging from a decrepit chair. It was a familiar place, my second home. I was sitting in a gay bar located on the outskirts of the town. The place was so small. With the shelves that stored alcohol bottles occupying almost half of the room, it could be full house with about fifteen people.

As I looked about, I saw familiar faces, people that I called my family. But the woman who sat next to me—I had never seen her before.

The warm lighting colored her pale skin orange, accentuating small patches of freckles on the tip of her nose and cheeks. She gave me a lop-sided smile, and her teeth peeked just a bit from between her thin lips.

"I sort of have a love-hate relationship with this song."

"Why is that?" She tilted her head to the side.

"Well," I said. "I love the lyrics. I love the music."

"It's a good song."

I nodded. "But I can't sing it freely. I can't tell my friends how much I love it." I put a cigarette between my lips, and offered her one.

"You could, if you wanted to— No thanks, I don't smoke."

I struck a match. "My straight friends, I mean. The public love it because Frankie Avalon is a straight man singing about wanting a girl."

"That's a fair point," she said.

"Imagine a girl singing it. There would be thousands of angry straight people."

She giggled, and stopped to listen to the chorus part. "Ok, now I have a love-hate relationship with it, too."

Her smile was coy, like that of an adolescent boy. Her dark locks fell into her face, as she looked down. She wiped the water droplets on the glass surface with her thumb. Then, she lifted her face to smile at me, the corners of her eyes crinkling, with all the charms of Venus.

I smiled back, and gestured towards her almost empty glass. "Can I buy you a drink?"

She pursed her lips, held her chin in her hand, and pretended to think for a while. And she said, "Only if you let me buy you one too."

"Oh, no, you're driving a hard bargain, lady." I giggled, the whiskey running in my veins making it so effortless. I beckoned over the bartender. "I'm Lana, by the way."

"Gwendoline," she said.

"That's a pretty name. Can I call you Gwen?"

Her eyes shone, and she bit her lip. "Actually," she said, "I prefer Wendy."

I opened my eyes, and the dark and the sound of rain welcomed me back. Her smile lingered behind my eyelids. God, she was so beautiful. My heart thumped against the mattress, telling me how weak I was against my subconscious. I cursed myself for taking sleeping pills, instead of dumping them in a filth bucket like usual. I felt even more tired.

 _Wendy, my Venus._

Pepper was humming in her cell, and inside my head Dominique joined in. It'd be a long night, another endless waking nightmare.

"Pepper, go back to sleep," a husky voice said, drawling the _r_ sound of the name.

I hadn't heard that voice in days. The footsteps were so light, the sound of rain almost drowned them out. She stopped in front of my cell, taking a deep breath or two, the keys jingling in her hands. I lay in my bed completely still, all of my focus on her, in the dark. Then, after some moments, I realized she couldn't see or hear me move, couldn't tell if I was asleep.

As soon as I sat up, the cold air stroked my bare legs. I shivered once, and got on my feet to walk to the door. We stood there without a word, staring into the dark, feeling each other's breaths. And then, the keys clattered, as she unlocked the door, the sharp click too loud in the stillness of the night.

Yet, she stepped back, instead of opening it for me. She stood there, waiting for me to come out on my own volition.

So I did.

###

In the entrance hall, the sound of rain was louder, as it hit the skylight above us. Mary walked with anxiously quick steps, as if we were getting rained on. We took the advantage of the rambling of thunder, and sprinted down the _Stairway to Heaven_.

Every time lightening lit up the whole sky, it shed light on the raven-black veil on her head. It was a quite magnetizing sight, I must say. But I'd never admit that I almost missed a step because of it. I thanked the fact that she was too preoccupied with the surroundings to bother looking at me.

Once we entered the chapel, Mary closed the door so gently, that a spider's sleep wouldn't be disturbed. The lightning gave me a sight, only for a bit, and I saw her at last. Her hand rested on the rusty black handle, and the other flat on the expanse of the door. Her bottom lip was between her teeth, as she looked at me from under knitted brows. I saw guilt and uncertainty in her eyes, as though her behavior was worth a reprimand, from _me_.

I smiled at her. "I haven't seen you for a while."

She nodded her head slowly, as her hands let go of the door. I followed her to the same spot as before.

"I was in town to run some errands for Dr. Arden," she said.

"Arden?" The darkness concealed my grimace, but not the suspicion and slight disgust in my voice. She must've heard it.

"He's been very kind to me ever since he started working here." She repositioned herself in her seat, so her body was facing me.

"Is that right."

"The kindest anyone has ever been to me."

"Sure, and Jude is a saint."

She fell quiet, and said, "You don't know about my life, Miss Winters."

The sky got bright again, illuminating her golden bangs, as she ducked her head. It stung, not because she was right, but because she was _wrong_. Dead wrong. I knew, painfully, more than what she'd told me. More than she knew.

"I owe him a lot," she said.

"How so?"

"Everyone thinks I'm a stupid girl. I can't do anything right. It takes a lot of time for me to learn. Even after five years, they don't quite trust me with anything. But Dr. Arden— He is different."

And she told me that Arden had come to Briarcliff three years ago at the Monsignor's suggestion, that he came off as very intimidating at first, and that the enigmatic appliances in his office used to give her nightmares. Then one day, a patient died and his death devastated her. Arden was the only person who cared about her, cared enough to sit with her in this very chapel, while she cried.

"He said I had something everyone else didn't have, said I was not the worthless person that they had made me believe I was."

He was right, for thinking she was special. She had purity, innocence that the rest of Briarcliff lacked. And he was a predator, a perverted parasite, attracted to the lightness in her.

"I don't like him," I said. "I don't like that he makes you think you owe him something."

"He's not a bad person, Miss Winters. He's just misunderstood . . . like me."

"He abuses Kit. Have you seen the scar on his neck?"

"It's not abuse. It's for the greater good." She let out a sigh. "It's true that he has a peculiar way of thinking, but ordinary people aren't supposed to understand his ingenious brain."

"Are you sure he didn't mean _sane_ people?"

Then, another sigh escaped her lips, as she shook her head. "My point is," she said, "that he's the only person who deems me worthy of his time and voice. He trusts me. He even lets me help with his experiments."

"Experiments?" I said. "What kind of experiments?"

She began to fidget, her words dying in her throat. "I—I'm not supposed to—"

I was growing tired of talking about Arden, but this— It was a topic that woke up the journalist part of me, blowing away the rest of my drowsiness.

"When I caught you out in the woods, were you helping him?" I said.

A jolt of lightning lit up the sky above us again, followed by a roaring thunder. Mary jumped, a gasp leaving her lips. She scooted closer until our knees bumped into each other, and wrapped her fingers around my forearm. The ground shook under our aligned hips. Her body was radiating heat, despite the cold air of coming winter. We'd never had skin-to-skin contact before, I realized.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm easily scared."

"Didn't know that."

She pulled away, recovering a little distance between our bodies. My skin that touched hers felt colder then, and I shivered. Silence fell upon us. I could hear her swallow, hear her play with her crucifix.

"Well?" I said. "The experiment?"

She took a deep, slow breath. "I can't tell you," she said. "I'm sorry." Her voice was frail, as though it really pained her to build a barrier of secret between us. "But the point is, he was the first—and only—person who ever made me feel useful. I owe him my life, and I need to pay him back, whatever it might take."

Useful. It was goddamn exploitation.

"Is he making you do something illegal?"

"No—" she said with much conviction. But then, her voice faltered again. "I don't think— It's for the greater good."

"The greater good."

"I help him," she said. "He says he couldn't do it if it wasn't for me. You may not know how much it matters to me."

She was right this time. I was always the go-to person in times of trouble, the person who strived to lead herds of lost sheep. The earliest memory I had was of me, age three or four, sitting on the edge of my parents' bed. My father was letting me pick a tie for him. I remember choosing a purple one over a blue one, because it was my favorite color at the time. "You're such a dependable girl, Lana," he said, with the purple tie around his neck. Although I had yet to learn what that word exactly meant, his crooked smile made me proud nevertheless.

It was a natural thing to me, this leadership. I was useful, and I knew it. Mary had a point—I could not even fathom, how it felt to be useless, how it could affect a person's life. Her life.

"I'm sorry," Mary said.

"For?"

"I don't know. For bringing you here, for talking only about me."

"I told you, don't apologize for that."

"But there isn't even the moon to look at. I should have let you stay in your room."

"Then why did you unlock the door?" I asked.

The sky got bright again, the light falling into her eyes, as she looked at me. She bit her lip. Then she disappeared into the dark. Still, I could see her looking at me, searching for words, and failing. The rumbling of thunder came after a few seconds, so far that it just sounded like a cat's purring.

"Did you want to talk to me so badly?" I said.

 _What are you doing, Lana, flirting with one of the people you're definitely not supposed to flirt with?_

Another jolt of lightning. The sound of rain suddenly got unbearable. But I swore that, as the sparks in her eyes burned my skin, her face became a little less pale. Blood in her cheeks. I wondered if anyone in her life had ever made her blush before. I feared that it might slap her in the cheek. She might sober up from our mutual whatever-this-was, and confess to Jude about us.

"The moon isn't out, sure." I sank back into my seat. "But I have freedom, as much of it as I could have in here. I was having a crappy dream anyway."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"You don't want to know."

Her clothes rustled, and I felt her hand hover above mine, close enough for the heat to travel. But she did not take my hand. It stayed there instead, and then she pulled away.

"Whatever eases your pain, I want to help," she said.

"It's my girlfr—my ex-girlfriend."

"Oh—"

"See? You don't want to poison your ears with the story of my sins."

"Do you miss her?" she asked.

It was not to condemn me. It was not to ridicule me like everyone had done since my admission. Only, it was to know how I was feeling. And it felt odd, to have our life together on the tip of someone's tongue, to have the thought of her on someone else's mind. The woman who'd betrayed me, but still managed to control the beat of my heart.

And the irony lay here, because in here, of all places in the world, I didn't need to hide the true relationship between us. They might mock me, called me names. But the cat had long been out of the bag, and was running around as it pleased. It was liberating. In the outside world, we were simply _best friends_ who shared a house.

"I do." I wanted to say no. I wanted to _not_ miss her. "She was the love of my life. The one that got away."

"And you dreamed about her?"

I nodded, and after a second, nodded once more. "Yeah. The worst nightmare."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Do you want to see me cry?"

She hesitated. "No. I don't want to see you cry," she said, as if _she_ was going to cry.

And I felt guilty for it, for the tears that she had yet to shed, even guiltier than when I actually _meant_ to be cruel. I raised my hand to fiddle with something on my chest, then realized I didn't wear a cross, or a necklace, like she did.

"I mean, it's not that shitty." I put the hand back in my pocket. "It was just about the first time we met, Wendy and I."

"Is that her name? Miss Wendy?"

It had been long since the last time I heard that name, not inside my head, but spoken by someone else. And the way Mary said it. It wasn't _Miss Peyser_ like her little students or Jude said. Not _Gwen_ , as her co-worker called her. _Wendy_. My Wendy. And I felt like Mary cherished the name, just as much as I did. It was such a peculiar thought.—She had never met Wendy, and never would.

"Wendy Peyser," I said. It tasted bitterly sweet on my tongue. "Everyone called her Gwendoline, but she preferred Wendy. That's what she told me when I first met her."

"When did you meet her?"

"Five years ago. In spring, but it was a cold night. It was her second year teaching at an elementary school, and I was just starting my career as a journalist."

"Was it love at first sight?"

It caught me off guard, leaving my mind blank, blowing away part of the nostalgia. Never in my most bizarre dream had I ever imagined talking about my gay love life to a Catholic nun, inside a chapel, of a psychiatric hospital.

"No, it wasn't." I shook my head. "Well—not to me anyway. To her it was. After we left the— We met in a bar. After we left there, she took me to the school she was teaching at. We were quite . . . not sober."

She giggled, in a more demure manner than I did.

"We snuck in from the backdoor that they always left open. And she led me to her classroom, and showed me the drawings her students did of their parents, telling me what she liked about each one of those kids I'd never met." I sighed, as her drunken smile came back before my eyes. "I couldn't care less, to be honest, but I liked how she spoke, glancing at me every five seconds, like . . . she was making sure I was still there next to her. And then—"

 _She asked me if she could hold my hand._

"Then?" Mary said.

"Then, she told me I was the most beautiful woman she'd ever seen. She said she couldn't take her eyes off me in the bar. Not my words." I laughed. "I'm just quoting what she said."

"How'd you know you liked her, then, if it wasn't love at first sight?" she said.

Again, she threw me off with her out-of-the-blue question. If I were straight, this might not have been so foreign to me. _Where did you meet him? What do you like about him? Did he buy you a ring already?_ That kind of questions that straight girls like to ask her straight friends over lunch. When I talked to my gay friends, the conversation centered on work, parents, and how homophobic the world was.

"I don't know," I said. "It just happened over time, I guess. But, I think . . . I think it was the night of my birthday."

"When is your birthday?"

"May 10th. We had only been together for three months or so, and I only mentioned my birthday once, like a week after we first met. But she remembered it, and bought a gift for me. The little L-shaped brooch that I wore on my jacket? She bought that for me."

"Was it expensive?"

I shook my head. "No, but the price didn't matter. She remembered my birthday, and took her time to do something. That mattered. And then, I knew I liked her, I suppose."

"That easily?"

"It's little things like these that matter most of the time," I said. "Big things are nice too, but little things . . ." I put my hand on my left chest, where the brooch would've been. There was nothing, but the unique coldness of fabric.—Metal would've had sharper coldness.

"Like saying 'I love you' every day?" she said.

"Yeah, like that," I said. "Like 'I love you,' 'I care about you,' and simply sitting next to her when she cries. Things like that."

The rain had subsided to drizzle outside. There was no more lightning or thunder, only the sound of the ground absorbing soft raindrops. I wondered what became of my L pin.

"You still love her," she said.

I turned my head to her. "What— No, I don't." I let out a snort. "She betrayed me, chose her job over my life."

"But you still love her," she said. "You were smiling."

And I realized—the flashes of lightning did not shed light on her face, but mine, too. I had been seen. And while it was true that I didn't ever recall smiling, my cheeks hurt, cramping. Those were the muscles that I hadn't used in a long time, the muscles that Wendy never failed to get moving.

I was smiling, wasn't I?

"We've spent five years together." _Fuck, don't cry._ "Of course, I do." I tried my hardest not to blink, but tears spilled over, and trickled down my cheek anyway. And then, I ached all over. "We were gonna spend our lives together. We promised it. She promised, said she'd always be there for me."

 _We will always have each other, Lana. Don't you ever forget that._

That was what Wendy said, as she kissed me. After our third anniversary, we drove to my hometown in Vermont to see my mother, hoping to, I don't know, to have her blessing, to have her understanding, to show how happy I was. I chose to avoid my father. He wouldn't have even bothered to give her a glance. And it wasn't hard to achieve, since they'd had a divorce several years prior.

I had misgivings, still, to come out to my mother. It was a huge risk, but I thought, if there was anyone who was familiar with alienation and discrimination as much as I was, it'd be her. But when I finally told her the truth, she couldn't look at me. She collapsed to the ground and wailed, as if she'd lost her child.—I lost my mother that day.

"This is my only home," I said to Wendy in our house, after a long, wordless drive.

Then, she wrapped her arms around me. I cried, for the first time since walking out of the house I grew up in, leaving my childhood behind. For good.

Her embrace tightened. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry," she said it many times. Her voice trembled, as she wet her cheeks for me.

Mary's soft fingers stroked the skin of my hand, barely touching. It was a yearning, yet timid touch, an uncertain approach, similar to that of a cat drooling over a fish in a stranger's hand. I wiped my cheeks, opened my hand, and took hers. It felt odd, quite awkward. But somehow it was hypnotizing, too, to find that her hand was slightly bigger than mine. Wendy's was smaller.

"What she did is," she said, ". . . unjustifiable, and I can't imagine half of the pain you must be in." She squeezed my hand. "But . . . maybe she really meant it when she said it, when she promised those things to you. I don't know her, but I think— I can't think that a person, loved and trusted by someone like you, could lie about something like that."

I didn't know what to say. What can you do to be free from the bitterness, when you know the person who hurt you isn't a villain? How do you let it all go, and forgive them? Where does one go, after accepting that both the hurter and the hurt are just humans?

Everything felt so surreal.

"Fuck, I need a cigarette," I said.

"They say those things will give you cancer."

My single laugh echoed in the chapel, followed by my sniffling. "Death sounds wonderful."

"Please don't say things like that," she said. "I'll be sad if you die."

I was going to apologize, but I wasn't sorry.

"You get sad when anyone dies," I said.

We fell silent, and like this, we waited for the morning to come. I stared down at our connected hands, illuminated by the weak sunlight. They rather looked alike, with scars and bruises and all, with pain and struggles accumulated under the skin. She was a mortal, just as I was.

Then I looked up, and found her looking at me. She gave me a smile, a sad one. It made me want to cry again.

I rubbed my puffy eyes. "I don't know how you could've survived here for five years," I said.

"You get used to it."

I didn't know if it was true.


	7. Chapter 7

**Here's this week's solace :/ hang in there everyone**

* * *

This is how our dawn tête-à-tête became a habit. My life in captivity became less of a nightmare since then.—This is not to say, that Jude's cruelty was bearable. Electroshock therapies and hydro therapies continued to torment me, wrapping me in a shroud of haze. Jude's serpent-like gaze was ever the same. And when I allowed myself to sleep some, I still had dreams of Wendy.

But all of this felt ephemeral, because I knew at the end of the day, Mary would be by my side. Everything would be reset, when we sat together. We stopped being the things the world said we were, and became just two people. What we wore lost significance, only until the morning.

Most of the time, she visited my cell after the third routine run. We kept our mouths shut until the chapel door closed behind us, and we sat there, drinking in each other's presence. She sometimes fell asleep on me. Every three days actually, as there wasn't enough free time during the day for her to take a nap. The weight of her head rested on my shoulder. Her bangs could brush against my cheek, if I ever turned my head to the side.

And in moments like these, I had only her breathing to listen to. I'd listen, and try to get my breathing in sync with hers. I used to do this with Wendy, too, in our queen-sized bed. But, while her breathing was somewhat heavy, Mary's had a sort of fragility in it. Such fragility and torpor that it gives you a fleeting fear she might be dead. When I found myself in that situation, I would raise my hand to place it in front of her nose, to feel her breaths on my skin. But always, she always woke up before I could do it. She was such a light sleeper. Her breathing would quicken for a second, and she'd apologize as she sat up, still fighting hangover drowsiness.

We did this many times, enough for me to discover all these patterns.

We would stay there until 6 a.m., thirty minutes before the wake-up time for the staff. It puzzled me at first that she could tell the time precisely. It didn't seem to change that, when the sun was hidden behind thick clouds, too.

"How do you do that?" I asked her on a rainy day. "Is there a clock hidden somewhere?"

She laughed, as I twisted my body in my seat, looking around. Then with a sly lip-biting smile, she took a pocket watch out of her habit. "Dr. Arden gave this to me for Christmas two years ago." She held it in both of her hands, scooting closer so I could have a better look at it.

In spite of the lack of light, the silver case shone provocatively around the black dial. The hour marks and the hands gleamed white like ghosts. The longer I stared at the ticking second hand, the louder the sound of it felt in silence.

"Looks expensive," I said.

"I know. I told him I couldn't take it, but he wouldn't listen. He said this deserved to be possessed by a woman like me. Isn't that silly? He's funny like that sometimes." She put it back in her pocket, then rested her hand there, as though to protect it from psychics who could see through clothes.

"Yeah," I said, "very funny."

Although, it was such a bizarre word to describe him. If the mad scientist was anything, he was creepy, as his gift was.

"I had never owned anything expensive," she said. "I didn't know what to do with it."

Our eyes met. She looked down, as she giggled.

"But I do now," she said. "I'm glad I have this. It's our talisman."

 _Our_. Her smile was proud. She thought the watch existed, not only for her, but for me, too. But it bugged me, because it was the very thing that was saving my ass from getting caught and caned by Jude. It was just a thing, but it was contaminated with Arden's foul intentions. I didn't want to owe him anything.

"Does he give you things often?" I said.

She shook her head. "No, he doesn't. Oh— But he gave me an—" Then she abruptly tightened her lips, swallowing the rest of her words. "No, this is the only thing he's ever given me," she said.

The award for the worst liar in the world went to her. There was no doubt. Over the years of journalism, I'd had people lie to me countless times. And one thing I'd come to learn, was that people tend to overestimate their ability to conceal their lies. Though they might act nonchalant, collected, and even confident, only few of them are actually successful. They could deceive themselves, but deceiving other people took special skills.

Mary Eunice, on the other hand, couldn't even sit like a regular person. I suppressed my urge to interrogate. Whatever she was hiding, I reckoned it was a secret between her and Arden, just like this was our secret.

I didn't like that at all.

"We used to decorate a Christmas tree in the common room," she said. "I miss it."

"Why don't you do it anymore?"

"Well, there was an incident last year . . ." She fidgeted, clearly uncomfortable. "Sister Jude threw all the decorations away after it."

I had a general idea of what she was referring to. There was a serial killer dressed as Santa Clause in Briarcliff, locked up somewhere. I remembered reading about him, and the killings he'd committed before, and after coming to this place.

"That's a shame," I said.

She nodded. "Everyone liked the tree decorations. We had this angel tree topper that Sister Jude bought it for us." A sigh escaped her lips. "She was beautiful. I miss her."

"You could get a tiny Christmas tree for your room, maybe?"

"But it's precious because it's shared by everyone," she said. But her face gained light then, and she brought her head near me. "Can you keep a secret?"

"Can I?" I said. "No one knows about this."

Her eyes crinkled, as she bit her lip. "You know Pepper wears a tiny ribbon in her hair?"

"What's left of her hair, yeah."

She nodded. "I change it to a Christmas ribbon at the beginning of December. Every year. And her doll gets a ribbon, too."

"That's your secret?"

"Our secret," she said, a proud smile across her lips.

She was so pure, like an angel. And even though she left me baffled, I was still smiling.

"Did you celebrate Christmas back home?" she asked.

"Sort of," I said. "Though, my family didn't exactly do it in an ordinary way."

"What do you mean?"

"I stopped believing in Santa Clause when I was five."

"At five?" She raised her brows, bewildered, and a little unnerved. "That sounds such an early age to—to—"

"To lose innocence?"

"That's one way to put it, I suppose."

I smiled. "I read something, and learned that he wasn't real," I said. "So, from then on, I told my mom what I wanted, over dinner or something."

She let out some giggles. "She must have been surprised."

"Not really," I said. "She figured it was a matter of time before I found out. She told me so when I was bigger."

"Really?"

I gave her a nod. "I was always reading, and asking her tons of bizarre questions she had no way of answering." I looked at her, as the corner of my mouth turned upward. "Such a surprise I grew up to be a journalist, right?"

She mimicked my grin, biting her lip. Then, her gaze dropped to her lap, to her fidgeting fingers, as she breathed out through her pursed lips, just once.

"Did you," she said, "celebrate it with Miss Wendy, too?"

She said, and I looked away. I found myself playing with the sleeve of my sweater, my jagged nails getting caught in the frayed fabric. This question was not utterly out of the blue.—She seemed to have grown used to Wendy, to the idea of her, to her name, to my life with her. And she would ask me about her. It was almost like an obsession. It was as if it was her own lost memories she was trying to recall.

Perhaps, she thought she was doing this for my sake, too. This might be so that I, with electroshock therapies frying my brain, wouldn't forget about her, the love of my life. Still, every time the familiar name was on the tip of Mary's tongue, it gave me a knot in the stomach. I just could not get rid of the uneasy feeling.

Sometimes I resented her for it.

"We did," I said. "We would have dinner, and then meet up with our friends in our favorite bar later."

"Did you directly tell her what you wanted, too?"

Despite myself, I let out a laugh. A weak one. Then I shook my head. "No, I didn't. I never had to."

"Why?"

It wasn't that Wendy was a psychic who could see every corner of my mind. She could read mind as much as the next person. In fact, it always seemed to agitate her when Christmas was around the corner. "What do you want for this Christmas?" she'd ask me, wrapping her arms around my waist. But I'd never tell her. Just a smile, but never words. Instead, I'd tell her not to worry about it, tell her not to spend her hard-earned money on me. Of course, if it did anything at all, it just made her determination more solid.—She got me a fancy fountain pen for our first Christmas together. A radio for the second, shortly after we'd moved in together. A poetry book of Robert Frost for the third. A wrist watch for the fourth.

And for the fifth, this year, she threw me into a mad house.

"There was nothing I wanted," I said. "I had it all, because she was with me. She could give me a regular pebble, and I would cherish it like a diamond."

She was a diamond. My Wendy. She was _the_ diamond.

"She must miss you," Mary said.

"I don't know."

Then, she looked at me, and smiled, as if she wanted to cry. The weak sunlight of the early morning shimmered in her eyes. And it made me wonder if that was how I looked, if what I saw was simply a reflection of my heart. Because there was no reason for her to cry. She wanted to cry, because I couldn't want to.

As much as it pained me, I found solace in her sorrow, felt privileged to have such fragile empathy. The girl did not just cry out of fear. The pain of others affected her, and stabbed her in the chest as much as her own. That kind of people is rare, I think, and that's why people often mistook it as weakness, as I once did. It broke my heart. Those tears would spill out and wet her cheeks during the day.

I wanted to protect her. I wanted to protect her from Arden, from Jude, and from all the people there would be in her life with the intention to do her wrong.

###

About two weeks in, I realized I was wishing to stay at Briarcliff. There were so many reasons, just as many as the reasons to escape. It was such a ridiculous, almost self-destructive way of thinking. Yet, I was too blind to see that, too caught up with my immediate desires.

Mary was one thing. Another thing was the invisible person from the library, who I decided to call Alex. It was the name of the pen pal I had when I was nine.

Our exchange was rather quick. Jude's orders allowed me to visit the library four times a week, and at every visit, I found a new letter in the hole. I'd write a response within the two-hour duty. I wished so many times that Jude would drum me out of the bakery duty for good, and make me an official library keeper. Our exchange was quick for sure, but four days a week was not enough for me. So many things to ask, to know, to tell. So little time and few opportunities.

I learned that, unlike me, Alex had come to Briarcliff five years ago by choice. They had no spouse, from what I'd gathered, or siblings. They had no family outside this place, and nowhere else to go. They used to be a bookworm, but now didn't have much time to enjoy reading. And their mother had taught them how to write. Their delicate handwriting was one of the few gifts she gave them.

Only that, nothing more. I knew I couldn't complain, though. It was still much better than having no information at all. Yet, I was only an ordinary journalist, not a Sherlock Holms with impeccable deductive skills. If those insignificant clues could lead me to Alex, I'd quit my job and become a free-lancer. There'd be no more writing cooking articles, or tolerating the nonsense that was my shitty boss. (That sexist pig probably assumed I'd run away. He would never bother looking for me, or going to the police. What an incredible supervisor.)

Looking for Alex in Briarcliff was like looking for a needle in a haystack. And the worst part was, the stack was becoming smaller in size.—The inmates were disappearing, one by one. Since I came, three people had disappeared. Two were said to have died, one allegedly ran away. Although their age and mental conditions differed, one thing was common.—None of them had family, nobody to search for them or claim their bodies. Alex didn't have family. There was something, or someone, taking the hay away. And some day, the needle might disappear with the hay.

Once Alex was gone, there would be no way to find them.

"Do you know how many people are admitted to this place?" I said to Kit and Grace one afternoon.

It was a sunny day. The quality of lunch, as per usual, was so poor I certainly could've cooked better while blindfolded. Wendy would've called me a culinary genius. We all sat in our couch, smoking to get rid of the horrid taste in our mouths.

"No?" Kit quickly looked over the common room. "Thirty people, maybe?"

"Seventy two."

"How would you know that?" Grace said. "It's more than twice as many. Some people may be in their rooms, but . . ."

"That's my point," I said. "I pulled up some documents after I'd learned about this place." _After I learned that Kit, thought to be Bloody Face at the time, had been sent here_. "They were old, like from four years ago, but it was the latest information available. Seventy two. That was the number."

Kit drew his brows together. "Are you saying Briarcliff had that many people four years ago?"

"That's what the paper said."

"Bullshit," Grace said. "I've been living in here for three years. The number of people hasn't changed that much since I came here." She lit a cigarette. "There might have been a little more, but no more than forty five."

"But people are disappearing, you know that."

"People die all the time. Especially in here," she said. "You look fine, and the next day you're gone. It happens."

"And you don't think there's anything wrong?" I said.

Her eyes bored into mine, as she let out a slow breath. "Right or wrong, we don't get to decide. They do."

I thought I just witnessed an obedient emotional slave in the making. It rendered me speechless. I looked at Kit, and he scratched his head, flaky dandruff joining the pool of cigarette ash in his lap.

"Smells fishy for sure," he said.

"There's something going on that's far more malicious than we think," I said. "I need to find out what it is."

He leaned toward the table to rub off his cigarette. "I know, and I support you. You could investigate all you want after we get out. But right now, I want you focusing on one thing."

The aged wooden frame of the armchair creaked, as I sat back deep. I looked down at my cigarette, my chapped fingers, and then the sleeve of my sweater. It was as frayed as a sweater sleeve could ever be, and amongst the many mysterious stains, there was a smudge of graphite.

"I know," I said. "Getting out of here. Our top priority."

"You don't sound so enthusiastic," Grace said.

"Just not sure how we're gonna pull that off, is all. It feels like we can only wait for an opportunity."

Our plan, which was to steal some kind of a wire from somewhere somehow and pick the locks of our cells while not getting caught, seemed hopelessly sanguine to me.

Kit looked around, making sure nobody was within earshot. "You know in the bakery they keep aprons near the sink."

"What about it?" I said.

"I only had a chance to glance at them the other day, but I think the hungers, they are thin enough for lock picking. And there are a lot of them. They won't suspect a thing if one of them goes missing."

"None of us knows how to pick locks, Kit," I said.

"Maybe, there's someone who can teach us. We'll practice."

He was desperate to get out as much as I was to stay. And while it was unreasonable on my part, his optimistic determination was beginning to get under my skin.

"How are we going to find that someone?" I said. "Are we going to ask around like, _'Hey. Do you know how to pick locks, because we are escaping?'_ Let's see how long it takes until Jude hears about it."

He looked down at his hands.

"And even if luck happens to be on our side and we perfected our skills," I said, "we don't know how much time it might take. We have to do it quick and quiet, and you do realize the doors can only be open from the outside, don't you? That means at least one of us has to be out of the cell, and the only occasion where we can be outside our cells at night is when we have a bakery duty—when we have a bakery duty, the guards are still out in the halls. And it's not just the doors of our cells that need unlocking. There are corridor doors, many of them, until we reach the basement. Are you really sure we could do it that easy?" When I finished talking, I was breathing heavily. I felt dizzy.

Kit's forehead twitched. He rubbed it with the heel of his hand. "Do you have any other ideas, then?" he said. "If so, I'm willing to listen." His tone reminded me of my father.

I dropped my gaze and said nothing. I had enough experience with this type of situations, and knew not to provoke the man any further.

Grace stubbed her cigarette. Until then, she'd kept quiet, while Kit and I argued. She braced her elbows on her knees, and leaned in toward me, staring with her big hazel eyes.—Those piercing eyes had magnetic attractiveness when I first met her. But now, they just sent chills down my spine. Her face was expressionless, void of any emotions. It was even more frightening than teeth-baring anger of a man.

"I sometimes hear someone sneaking out of her cell at night," she said, at last. "It's you, yes?"

All the hair on my body stood up. I felt myself trying to remain calm, regulating my breathing. "I don't know what you're talking about," I said, still not averting my eyes.

Grace continued to stare. And it felt unnatural, after all, to keep staring back. I dropped my gaze, and looked at anything, but her and Kit. But that action, too, felt like it was making me look even more suspicious. Everything felt unnatural and fraudulent, under scrutinizing eyes, when guilt resided in my core.

"What are you talking about?" Kit said to Grace.

"Someone lets her out at night. I can't see their faces but I know it's her cell. One of the nuns unlocks the door."

His eyes were wide in utter surprise and confusion, as he processed the new information. But there was something else in there, too, glimmering.

"I don't know who," Grace said. "They go out and come back before everyone wakes up."

"Is that true, Lana?" he said. It was hope, and it seemed to surface more when I kept my mouth shut. He looked at Grace and me back and forth. There was a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, as though he wasn't sure if he should smile. "It's . . . it's great! I mean, if she has the keys, we don't have to worry about them, Lana. Do you think she could help us?"

"She can't know," I said.

Kit leaned closer, elbows on the very edge of his knees. "Well, maybe she can, and maybe she can help us. Who is it?"

"I can't drag her into this, Kit. I really can't."

But the hope in his eyes didn't go away that easily. "Can you steal the keys, then, when you're out with her next time?"

 _It'll still get her in trouble_. "I don't know," I said. The face of Mary Eunice flashed across my mind, all scrunched up with tears soaking her cheeks. _It'll break her heart._

"You know," Grace said. "It almost sounds like you don't want to come with us, which is fine by me. But we need to escape. We don't have any other choice, and you know wounded animals would do anything if cornered."

"What is your point?"

She shrugged, letting out a quiet snort. "All I'm saying that I could easily find out who the nun is that's letting you out if I wanted to. And I don't know what Jude would do if she learned one of her staff and an inmate are acting out behind her back."

The hair in the back of my head stood up, not in fear, but like a roused cat's tail. "You're insane for thinking you could threaten me like that. Do you think I have nothing against you?"

"Knock it off, you two," Kit said, though his disapproval was disproportionately directed towards me. "We will figure out something else."

* * *

 **thank you for your kind words, everyone!**


	8. Chapter 8

Kit and I were sent for the bakery duty later that day. My attempt to keep distance from Kit and Grace wasn't as successful as I wished. Although there wasn't enough privacy for further discussion, his eyes kept following my every move, watching me, so not a single hint of betrayal would go unnoticed.

The timer beeped near the furnace. I saw a young sister near the furnace, getting rolls out of there. I abandoned the bread dough at the speed of light, and walked to her, as she lined trays up on the table. Anything to get me out of Kit's scrutinizing gaze, I was willing to do.

"I'll help you, sister." I put on oven mitts—they were covered with an offensive amount of soot—and carried those trays to a rack trolley at the corner.

On my third trip back to the rack trolley, I saw Mary Eunice walk in. I put the tray in my hands down as quietly as possible, and hid behind the rack trolley. I sharpened my senses to eavesdrop the conversation between her and the guard.

"Hi, Mr. Sánchez."

"Sister, is everything alright?"

"Yes, well— Sister Alice is coming down with the flue, so I volunteered to fill her shoes today."

"You're a doll, sister."

Then, Mary walked to the other side of the room, and came back into my view shortly after, with an apron in her hand. She picked the crucifix between her fingers, as she rescued it from under the apron. The apron was rather huge around her figure, and it made her look like a child wearing her mom's to feel like a grown-up.

Her hand slid across the powdery tables, as she checked on other inmates. She stopped at the table I was working at earlier, chatted with Kit, who stood on the other side. She looked down at the bread dough in front of her, then. My dough. She twisted her body, looking around, and the simple gesture was somehow everything I needed to see in that moment. Somehow, it brightened up the whole bakery.

Did she know it was me who was supposed to be standing there? Or was she looking for one random inmate that wasn't contributing to the daily quota?—I hoped she knew. I hoped she knew it was me she was looking for.

It didn't take long until her eyes found me. She smiled at me from across the room, quickly dropping her gaze to her feet, but that smile lingered, as if she knew I was still looking at her.

Behind her, Kit was watching me.

I helped the nameless sister with the rest of the trays. By the time I was back at my table, Mary was slicing cheese at another table. Her bottom lip was between her teeth, as she focused on the task. It felt bizarre to look at her in the daylight. Most of our shared time was spent in the dark chapel, with a lack of such clear vision. The night always made her look like an ethereal creature, something that had no real body. Her pale skin, too translucent not to melt into the darkness. Her existence was cold on the outside. The only evidence of her being-ness was the warmth of her hand when she took mine. Looking at her in the light, as she interacted with other people, I found myself relieved that she wasn't a mere illusion, a creation of my mind.

I wanted to be by her side, to have the fabric of her habit brushing against my gown ever so slightly. I wanted to be there, no matter what excuse I had to use. And this was how I realized, that I'd grown attached to her. Like an alcoholic needs alcohol to feel stable, I depended on Mary's presence in order to feel like a human being.

But we were not in the chapel, where our shared hours could remain as secrets between us. We were surrounded by other people, though most of them were too overmedicated to wince, even if a murder happened before their eyes. Reckless moves could draw unnecessary attention to Mary and me. It was the last thing I wanted for us, especially now that Kit found out about my life here more than he should have. He was a sharp man. Any sign that seemed irrelevant and trivial could lead him to connect the dots. If I let my guard down, he would see that Mary was the one we needed.

.

The rest of the hours was relatively peaceful, the silence only disrupted by the sound of the cheese slicer, and the hums of a female inmate. As fleeting as the moment might be, the bakery was the most serene place in Briarcliff, and perhaps, on earth. Even when the guard announced the end of the duty, the bizarre tranquility remained intact. We put the dough in the fridge, put away the pastry boards and bowls. I grabbed a rag—it probably hadn't been properly washed for weeks—to sweep flour off the tables.

And then, a rapid, heavy chain of metallic sounds made a small slit in the peacefulness. Turning around, I found trays and bowls scattered about on the floor, and Mary on her knees in front of them.

I looked at Kit, who also witnessed the whole fiasco. He was assisting the other sister then, and the other two inmates appeared to be _occupied_ as well. It seemed like I was the only one with the capability or time to help her. Nobody would suspect a thing if I went ahead and lend a hand.—In fact, it would look unnatural and skeptical if I _didn't_ help her there.

It was such an absurd thought to have, a thought some people might consider hyperbolic and ridiculous. But I needed this much of assurance, to even decide to be in the same frame as her.

When I stood on the other side of the cluttered zone, she looked up, embarrassment tugging at the corner of her mouth.

"Here, let me help you," I said, as I knelt down and piled up the trays.

"You don't need to, Miss Winters," she said. "This is my mess." As she stood up, her cross clinked against the bowls she clutched to her chest. "Put them on top of these." She stretched out her arms a little, with her eyes at the trays in my hands.

I brushed past her instead. "To the sink, I take it?" I asked, slowly walking backwards.

"Ah—yes. To the sink. Thank you." Mary looked down and smiled, as if she too was muddled and uncertain how to interact with me in the light.

I waited until she was leading our way. We walked to the corner of the room, where all sorts of receptacles were piled up in disastrous pyramids in and out of the sink. Some of them were burned so badly that blackish brown patches covered almost the entire silver surfaces, some were bent in the middle, some even had holes at the bottom—in a sense, the place was a graveyard for baking tools and utensils.

And at one end of the graveyard stood a clothes rack, with aprons hanging like the laundry forgotten in the rain. There were only five or six of them. The yellowish white of the fabric gave off an eerie air, still too bright compared to the rust-covered coat hangers. The coat hangers. There were so many of them, that every staff and inmate could have one for each.

 _They won't suspect a thing if one of them goes missing,_ Kit's voice said in my mind.

I looked over my shoulder and found the real-life Kit on the other side of the room, staring at me. His eyes glowed under the roof of his brows. I gave him a small nod.

Mary put the bowls in what was left of the sink. Her cross almost got caught by the faucet, as she leaned in, and she placed it under the apron. The water splashed against the walls of the sink. She brushed her bangs out of her eyes, and looked at me.

"Thank you, Miss Winters." She walked to me and took the trays out of my hands.

As I was freed from the metallic weight, our fingers brushed against each other. Her eyes crinkled. The little smile that tugged at the corner of her mouth never faltered. And I wondered if this was how she always looked next to me in the dark chapel, wondered if the tenderness on her face was something I drew out of her.

She went back to the sink. "I didn't—" she said. "I didn't know you had a bakery duty today."

"Jude likes me hard-working."

She let out some breathy chuckles, as she grabbed a shrunken sponge. "I wasn't supposed to work here today, but Sister Alice is sick and couldn't work here, so . . ."

"So, you are working on her behalf."

"Yes."

"You are sweet," I said.

She looked up, slight red coloring her cheeks. "Well—but I'm not," she said.

"You're harsh on yourself sometimes."

"No, it's true." Her brows knotted beneath the golden bangs. Her lip almost disappeared between her teeth, as she scrubbed burnt dough off a tray. "I first didn't want to come—couldn't. But there was no one else. You see, it wasn't that I came here willingly."

"Did you explain to them that you had some other things to do?"

Her shoulders stiffened at that, as her hands stopped. For a fraction of a moment, there was only the sound of water knocking on the metal.

"I . . . couldn't."

"How come?"

She glanced at me. A look of a child who knew lying would only dig her own grave. "Dr. Arden told me not to—"

Then she saw my face, saw that the rest of the sentence would be redundant and inessential. She closed her mouth.

"I think it could wait a little," she said, almost to herself.

"You shouldn't allow people to take advantage of you like that," I said.

She shrugged, as she always did. She scratched a particularly stubborn burnt spot with her nail.

"I mean it." I leaned against the sink, peering into her face. "You really shouldn't."

"But if it wasn't for them, I wouldn't have been here with you," she said. Right in my face, with a rather proud glint in her eyes, as though it was the best comeback. But then the next moment, the twinkles hid behind the bangs. She cleared her throat, and looked down at the dishes.

I was stunned, muddled, speechless, as I tried to understand what it was.

It was too brief to be translated into a language I could understand. But my heart picked up speed a little, just a little, softly enough to echo inside me like ocean tides. It felt good. It made me warm inside. This was how it must feel to be in a cradle, with a hand of your mother stroking and patting your tummy in tender rhythm. I felt like a human again, reborn in the soft thumps.—I could live in the silence, if she needed me to, if this was going to be our language.

But it was the silence—and the contentment in it—that allowed my eyes to wander. From her hands, to her face, to the metallic mountains around us, to the clothes rack, to the coat hangers, and to Kit.

The bakery was clean, all tools put away, with only him, Mary, and me in it. He lifted his brow with his apron in hands. I looked at the clothes rack again, with enough movement of head for him to _know_ , but with enough subtly to keep Mary oblivious. I nodded.

He left, and after some beats, the guard, Sánchez, appeared before us. "You're the only one left. Go back to the common room," he said. Chilly wind stroked my cheeks as he walked past us, to the clothes rack. He hung the aprons he collected from the other inmates. "Gimme your apron." He held a hand out to me. His palm looked like a dried field of savanna, as he demanded to have my apron.

But I couldn't, not right there with a chance so close. "I'm helping Sister Mary Eunice. I'll go back when I'm done."

"Sister?" He cocked his brows at Mary. "Is she bothering you? Because I can report this to Sister Jude and—"

"Oh, no. Absolutely not." Mary shook her head. Our eyes met. She never looked away as she said, "She's being such a wonderful help to me." Then her eyes shifted to him. "I'll make sure to send her back to the common room when all is taken care of."

He threw a nasty glance at me. "Alright, if you say so, sister," he said, then left us.

We stood in silence, listening to his footsteps as they got further.

When the door shut, I couldn't help a grin. "I didn't know you could be such a good liar, sister."

"A liar?" Her brows knotted together, but her lips curled into a small smile. "I lied to no one, Miss Winters. Thou shalt not lie. You are indeed helping me." She turned the faucet off, shook water droplets off her hands, and grabbed a pile of clean bowls, handing it to me. "Put them back on the racks, please," she said, as she pointed at the racks near the furnace.

So we worked together like this. She'd clean the dishes and tools, and I'd put them back to their designated places—though the arrangement was possibly quite far from the original, as I did not know what went where. I would steal a glance at her a few times then, smile at the way she bent her knees lightly and leaned against the side of the sink.

And just as often, my eyes would drift to the clothes rack. I'd find myself inching as unsuspiciously close as possible to it. I'd strain my eyes, to assess if the wires were fine enough, envisaging myriad of approaches. They could be used to pick locks in theory, I decided. There was even a possibility that the thin length of metal could actually get me out of there. Not the bakery, but Briarcliff. Kit's plan suddenly started to look plausible. The beacon of hope grew its intensity. I itched for an opportunity. But, while a voice in my head chanted a mantra of encouragement, another voice begged my heart not to deceive Mary.

I wished time would stop. I wished—I wished for freedom, a freedom that didn't have to be on the flip side of deception.

* * *

 **More scenes with Mary ahead! Stay tuned :D**


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: To the mysterious guest requesting I write a foxxay Still Alice AU. A wicked idea! Don't ever think you're a bother. I can't say when it'll be done, but it's definitely on my to-do list now. Thank you! Also, if you have any prompts, you could either just drop it in the review section, or come to my tumblr account, extra-mt16.**

 **As always, I appreciate every one of you reading ;D**

* * *

Resting against the sink next to Mary, I took a matchbox out of my sweater pocket. I put a cigarette between my lips.

"You aren't supposed to smoke in here, Miss Winters." She tightened her lips, tilting her head to the side.

I shrugged. "I found this—" I jerked my head at the cigarette pack on the edge of the sink. "—hidden between drawers. I just—" The bright flame of the match blinded me, as it licked the tarnished tip of the cigarette. "Trying to see if I can light it." I held the match there, and the heat caressed my nose.

"I don't care where you found them."

The fire died. Though it did brown the paper around the cigarette slightly, the tip stayed arid.

Mary gave a tiny grin. "That's the Lord saying you shouldn't smoke, either."

I tossed the corpse of the match in a bucket under the sink. "Your Lord is merciless." I struck another match, and this time, the tip caught the fire. "Or not," I said. The smoke entered my system and caressed the walls of my lungs. It tasted worse than the one Grace found in an empty cell. "God, tastes like piss."

"People could smell it." She tried to take it with her wet fingers, so I shielded it with my shoulder.

"No one would be here until the night shift," said. "The smell will be gone by then." I took another drag. A deep one. The abrasive flavor spread in my mouth like a pandemic, stuck to the enamel of my teeth, permeating my gums, and putting my taste buds in a coma.

"It's an issue of sanitation," she said, as she put a freshly cleaned tray on an already existing stack.

"These piles are way more unsanitary if you ask me." I waved at the graveyard. Cigarette ash floated, as I did so. "Looks like quite the ideal place for rats to build their home." I picked up the cigarette pack, held it out to her. "You want one?"

"I don't smoke." With her gaze trained on me, she wiped her hands dry with a rag, which looked equally unsanitary. "My body is a temple of the Holy Spirit," she said.

"Is it the Bible talk?"

She nodded, then recited another passage, which, according to her, was why Christians don't drink alcohol. Her eyes shone, as delighted as those of a little girl reciting a poem without missing a beat. Her pride was too pure for me to chime in.

"Suit yourself." I stashed the cigarette pack away in my pocket. "Though, if you're planning to hang around with me, it's inevitable that you'll get hooked."

"I'm sorry?"

"Sooner or later, you'll be smoking." I said. "Wendy didn't smoke when we first met, but she's as much a heavy smoker as I am now."

I shouldn't have said that. _Now?_ There was no _now_ or _we are_ for us. Only _we were_ , and _we used to_. And why did I think it was a good idea to compare her, a friend, with Wendy, an ex-lover? It was absurd, and also very inappropriate. I bit my bottom lip and looked down. Even so, I felt Mary's gaze on me, rubbing my skin, as she searched for words.

I took a drag. "It tastes so gross."

"When did you start smoking?"

"When I was fifteen," I said. "My parents smoked, but I wasn't particularly interested. And then, when I was fifteen, I had this . . ."

"This . . .?" she tilted her head.

 _This massive crush on my best friend's sister._ But she didn't have to know that.

"I met this older woman." I took another drug. "She was a smoker. And . . . I guess I wanted to know what it was like to smoke, wanted to have some kind of affinity with her." _And wanted to know how it'd taste to kiss those crimson lips._

"Affinity?" she said.

"Something to have in common. I'd smoke every time I thought of her, and—" I wrapped my lips around the cigarette. "I got hooked. Just like that."

"Do you think of her still, when you smoke?"

"No, no, I don't. I don't think of anyone anymore." I tapped the ash off, letting it fall at the foot of the sink. "They are just cigarettes."

I glanced aside, and found her gawking at me, at the cigarette between my fingers. Her eyes followed it as I brought it to my mouth.

It gave me a temptation to tease her with it. But I didn't. "Do you— Are you sure you don't want one?"

She looked down. "I'm— I—" Her gaze drifted around, from her fidgeting fingers, to the loose faucet, to the small puddle right under it.

"You were looking like a child before a toy store." I took another drag. Then, I took one step closer to her, and held the cigarette in front of her face, just a hair away from her lips. "Come on, it's ok to have a little bit of curiosity."

She bit her bottom lip and looked at me, as a child might do.

"I won't tell anyone," I said.

Her lips were pursed, prepared for the new experience, as she lowered her head. She wrapped her lips around it, but then stopped, as though she didn't know what to do from there.

"Inhale," I said, smiling as she did so. "Breathe in. Let the smoke in your lungs."

She took an audible intake of breath, and immediately had a fit of coughing. "Oh my Lord." Her face twisted, as she clutched her throat.

I let out a laugh. "Don't worry, everyone does that their first time." Then I took a drag, grimacing at the flavor that spread in my mouth again. "I probably shouldn't have let you have this one."

She turned on the faucet, and brought a handful of water to her mouth. "This really tastes like . . ."

"Piss."

Her watery eyes crinkled. "Yes . . . it does."

"I swear this is not how regular cigarettes taste. This one is like a hundred years old, so . . ."

"Oh, I don't know, Miss Winters," she said, wiping one corner of her mouth. "I don't think I want to have the smoke in my lungs ever again." She let out another cough. "Pardon me. My throat is still burning."

"I'll see if I could get you a fresh one."

Without further words exchanged, we together stayed leaning against the sink. The cigarette flame reached the very edge of its orange filter in a few minutes, and I was left with a cigarette butt and the gag-inducing fume that smoked my tongue.

Mary waited until I threw it away into the under-sink bucket, and said, "I have to get you back to the common room." Walking past me and to the clothes rack, she undid her apron knot on her lower back.

It unlaced me out of the comfort haze, too. Time was running out.

I followed her to the row of aprons, putting my hand on one of the coat hangers. I felt the rough end of it digging into my thumb. The sting of it foreboded the trust I was about to betray. "How often do you wash them?" I asked her, as I fiddled with one of the aprons.

"Once a week," she said.

"Really? This one literally has— What is this? Blood, or is this snot?"

The apron in my hand had little dark dots on its sleeve. When I looked up, she tilted her head, her lips tightened with a hint of smile. She batted her eyelashes at me. Patronizing. And that quickened my pulse in a way that narrowed my airway. The thumps in my ribcage were foreign, unpleasantly so. It was a different rhythm and heat than when she smiled at me from across the room at the beginning of the duty.

My smile twitched. "What?"

"I know what you're doing, Miss Winters," she said.

 _Shit, she knows._ A jolt of chills ran down my spine and made the hair in the back of my head stand up. _I don't know how she found out, but she knows._ I let go of the hanger I was fiddling with.

"Know what, sister? What do you know?"

"I know that you are stalling," she said, and dropped her gaze. "I wish I could spend more time with you, too." She put her apron away, and after taking another hanger off the rack, she held her hand out to me. "Give me your apron. I promise I'll see you tonight."

She knew like a child knew about politics. I heaved a small sigh of relief, as I internally laughed at her, and at myself. But her unadulterated purity still stabbed me, and I knew then—I was no worse than Arden or Jude.

"Alright, that's a promise."

I took extra time for untying my apron. A part of me hoped that she'd grow tired of waiting and leave me there, alone with the rack and hangers. But that didn't happen. The apron came off with so much ease for my liking, and she took it with her benevolent smile.

"Let's go," she said. She put her hand on my shoulder, pressing me to turn around.

I walked behind her as we headed for the exit. Yet, I couldn't help but turn around to look behind, look at what I'd just missed. The chance was so close, right before my eyes, but I wasn't lucky enough to grab it by the tail. Then I thought about Kit and Grace. Would they buy my words if I told them the truth, that I couldn't get what we needed?—Kit saw me left alone with Mary, who might be the most gullible among the staff. He would think it'd be a piece of cake to deceive her, to trick a sheep. They'd know, or at least feel it in the air, that I had a reason—beyond a lack of opportunities—for being unable to do so. They'd know that I had a soft spot for her.

Then they'd know exactly how to threaten me.

I couldn't have that. We were approaching the door, and I looked back again. If the chance was getting away, I must run faster to capture the motherfucker, tackling it to the ground.

Mary grabbed the keys off the wall-mount holder, and opened the door. Our eyes met as she held it for me. Looking at the innocent curve of her lips, I lost my courage for a short moment, felt my heart shrink in panic. But my smooth mouth pushed a single word out, just a sound comprehensive enough to fight the freezing of my brain.

"Shit," I said.

"What? What's wrong?"

"I—" _Come on, think of some excuse. Quick, quick!_ "I left my—" I cleared my throat. "I think I left my matchbox on the sink."

"Oh— I could've sworn I'd seen you put it in your pocket."

 _Don't back down here. She doesn't know you have a reason to lie._ "Yeah, me too." I fumbled in my pockets, taking the cigarette pack out for display. "But I can't— It's not in here." I took a small step back, ready to turn on my heels. "You wait here. I'll be right back."

And before Mary could even nod, I ran back. I made the sound of my footsteps loud and clear with all the intention of doing so, almost slamming the soles of my shoes against the floor, so she'd know where I was, and where I was going. I stopped in front of the sink, exactly where I was standing a while ago. On my left was the clothes rack. Although it should take only several steps, it felt like miles and miles away. I looked over my shoulder. Besides my own breathing, it was utterly silent. If Mary were to decide to come watch me right there, her heels would give her presence away . . . but would they really?

"Did you find it?" Her voice echoed from a distance.

"Y—yeah," I said, and walked on tiptoe to the rack.

As I took one of the naked coat hangers by the hook, they clattered against one another. It was only a hint of sound. But in the room void of any other noises, I didn't know how much of it could be absorbed in the air, before reaching Mary's ears. I cleared my throat, hoping it'd draw more attention, then looked down at the wire in my hands. I knew the triangle shape of it would take too much space to hide, so I folded it until it was the shape of a thick, fat _I_. Only with the length of my hand. Just short enough to lie horizontally at the bottom of my pocket.

With my hands buried deep in my pockets, I walked back to Mary.

She smiled. While feeling the sharp coldness of wire in the left pocket, I took the matchbox out of the right one and showed it to her—the art of misdirection. If you don't want your audience to pay attention to a certain thing, you simply have to give them another thing to divert their attention.

She locked the door, then—I wondered if it was the same type of lock as the ones on our cells—and led me through the grim hallways, to the _Stairway to Heaven._


	10. Chapter 10

As we went up the stairs, I realized it was unwise to go back to the common room without hiding the hanger first. Kit and Grace might not even be there. I couldn't possibly have my hand stuck in the pocket for an eternity, waiting for them.—It would be a matter of time before it elicited suspicion from the staff. Yet freeing my hand might pose a risk. The wire might poke through the fabric of my sweater, or some unimaginable thing might happen and it might just fall out of the pocket. At this point, I couldn't be _too_ cautious. I needed to hide it, somewhere nobody could see, somewhere even Grace or Jude couldn't imagine to be a hiding place.

The females' ward was located on the second floor, so when we got there, I stopped Mary.

"I'd like to go back to my cell. I don't feel really well."

"Do you need to go to the infirmary?" she said.

I shook my head, as I looked down at my toes. "No, it's not that— I just— It's probably the electroshock therapy I had this morning. I feel a little dizzy."

"Does your throat hurt, too?"

I looked up, and find her eyes looking back, worried. And it was only then that I realized there was a hand on my throat—my hand. Although I'd been cautious with this habit around Kit since he pointed it out, it never occurred to me that someone else might be aware of it, too. I didn't know if Mary Eunice knew it, or simply was concerned about my throat.

"Yes," I said, "yes, it does hurt." I swallowed. My heart thumped so hard, with such a violent force, that it really clouded my mind. It gave a heavy stone in my stomach. A faint taste of iron stung the tip of my tongue.

"Okay," she said. "To your room."

Then, as we changed our direction, she put her hand on my back. It was warm and soft. Even though my sweater and gown I felt it, and I feared the pounding of my heart would too travel to her hand.

The females' ward felt stifling, as always. With most of the inmates spending time in the common room, it had only some people during the day time. And as they almost never had a good reason to stay inside their cells—incapable of walking, too troubled to interact with others, restrained to their beds, or what have you—the ward at this time of day was the most daunting place on earth.

Walking down the corridor, we heard an earsplitting scream. The first millisecond of it startled both of us, but the rest was all too familiar to keep me on my toes. For good or bad, we were all going numb. Mary left my side, and went into the cell the sound came from. I hesitated, but kept walking. And as I walked past there, I saw, from the wicket, her and a young woman. They both sat on the bed, the head of the inmate on Mary's shoulder.

Only a glimpse. A brief moment.

But the image was burned in my mind, behind my eyelids, as I stepped into my own cell. Mary had their fingers intertwined, and her other hand stroked the brunette hair, that was a little longer than mine. It turned my stomach, but I couldn't put my finger on it. The way Mary held the woman in her arms, the way the black of her habit made a brutal contrast with the worn-out fabric of the hospital gown, or the fact that it could easily be _us_. I didn't know, I didn't want to know.

Would she hold me the same way, if I screamed like that?—She would. It was her job.

In the corner of my cold cell, I stood by myself, feeling the coldness of the hard floor crept up my legs. I waited for Mary, even though I didn't know if she would come. When she was done with soothing the woman, she might forget about me, and go about her business. But if she were to come, it was important she wouldn't catch me hiding the hanger. That would be a disaster. So I stood there, as I pushed my thumb into the edge of the hanger in my pocket.

"Miss Winters." Mary's face popped up from behind the door frame. "Don't you need to lie down?"

I nodded and sat on the edge of the bed. "Is she alright?" I asked, as she stood in front of me. "The woman, she was screaming."

"She's . . . easily disturbed, but she is no harm to anybody."

"How long has she been in here?"

She bit her lip, her eyes wandering. "She was already one of the oldest patients when I came here. More than two decades for certain."

Twenty years in confinement! The six-and-a-half-foot cube of her cell being her entire world for that long. Even a child could imagine what it would do to a person's mental hygiene. Whatever had gotten her admitted in the first place, it couldn't have been worse than what she suffered from right now. And that very idea frightened me to the core, that just like apples, humans could too rot if surrounded by other damaged humans for a length of time. It sent me chills, just to think I was one of the apples.

"Enough with the talking," Mary said. She gestured toward the pillow then, and her other hand grabbed the blanket folded at the end of the bed. "Lie down. I'll tuck you in."

At the suggestion I failed to hide my shock. "Tuck me in?" I let out a laugh before I could help it.

She looked as if she was going to blush. "I— Yes?" she said. "I don't know why you find it so funny." Her hands never let go of the blanket.

"I didn't say it was funny."

"You laughed."

I shrugged. "I just hope you know that I'm not five years old, nor am I your child."

"I'm very aware, but you're ill." The color of her cheeks darkened slightly.

"I hardly call myself ill," I said. "It's just . . . a mild headache."

"You need a rest. You said that yourself, remember?" She gave me a tiny grin. She put her hand on my shoulder, and gently pushed me towards the pillow. "Get some sleep and you may feel better."

The hand, though soft and warm like her smile, had a rather insistent grip on me. I figured she wouldn't go away until she was satisfied with her care.

"Fine," I said, and scooted up. But with my left hand still stuck in the pocket, the way I wiggled on the mattress was, without a doubt, unnatural and suspicious.

She must have seen it. She couldn't have missed it. Her gaze lingered on my bulgy pocket, but being the typical Mary Eunice, she didn't say anything. No question, no look of suspicion, no frown, no snicker.

She pulled the blanket up to my chin. Her fingers brushed against my hair in the process. She didn't draw away, or apologize. Her hand stayed there a little longer, and she looked at me, her face hovering over mine.

I fiddled with the coat hanger under the blanket. "Thank you, sister."

She smiled. "I'll see you tonight."

I waited until her footsteps disappeared behind the corridor door, and waited some more. Just in case she, for some mysterious reasons, decided to come back. Staring at the ceiling, I shivered at the coldness of the mattress under my back. The easily-disturbed woman, I think, began to sob again. But that was all there was, with no other sounds to break the silence. The hanger clinked in my grip.

Then, for the first time in an eternity, I unwrapped my fingers around it. I took my hand out of the pocket. The wire left red lines in my palm, and red dots on my thumb, where the tip of it dug in. It gave me unsettling feelings at first, not to have it pressed against my skin. It felt as though I'd lost an important part of my body. When I stretched my stiffened fingers, my joints ached.

I slid off the bed, and strode to the closed door. I pressed my cheek against the wicket, and when there was nobody in the corridor, I went back to the bed and hid the wire in the mattress. And as I sat on the bed, my head became clearer, and I realized what I had just done. The rush of adrenaline flooded me inside. I couldn't stop shaking, couldn't stop imagining what could've happened if Mary had caught me. Then, the sense of guilt clouded my mind again. I curled up, and closed my eyes. I wanted to scream, I wanted to sob, like the lady across the corridor.

Of course, this was not the end of it—far from it. But all the things that had happened today so far—and the sun was still rather high above the horizon—got my nerves worn out. It drained my energies, and stripped me of motivation, will to do anything anymore. I just felt like an empty vessel wrapped up in the blanket. Just a chunk of flesh and blood. I craved sleep, some blankness, a liberation from the weight of reality, no matter how fleeting it might be.

.

Mary came that night, as she promised. I felt her presence outside my cell, staring into the dark to see if I was awake, waiting for me to stand on the other side of the door. Her crucifix clattered against the metal, as if she couldn't get _close enough_.

I closed my eyes and continued sleeping, as she was part of the reality I was running away from.

ooOooOoo

So then I had a coat hanger. It remained unclear whether it'd really give us freedom, to the outside world, but either way it would restore Kit and Grace's trust towards me. That blackish-silver length of wire—it'd be the sign of my conviction in the eyes of Grace, the testament to my capability of deceiving Mary Eunice in those of Kit. In mine, it was the undeletable proof of my betrayal against Mary. Every time I felt it in my hand, I felt a wave of guilt.

But there was no other way out, no path to keep everyone from getting hurt. It was either betrayal against her or them. One of them meant eventual escape from this hellhole. The other one guaranteed nothing—nothing bright. I needed my future back. Not the one in a thick fog of insanity with Mary by my side, but the one filled with ordinary routines and peaceful boredom.

I had to choose one or the other. I had to choose freedom over Mary.

"Where's Kit?" I sat beside Grace on the couch the next morning.

The common room had changed its atmosphere while I was away for one night. The change was subtle, nothing too drastic. But at first view, I could tell what fit in and what didn't. A song with the slightest taste of Christmas had replaced Dominique. Mr. Bader had an ugly sweater on. Pepper's hair ribbon had changed to a green one, and her rag doll had a red ribbon around its neck.—Mary did that. It was the beginning of December.

"In Arden's lab," Grace said. "Where were you last night?"

"In my cell. I wasn't feeling well."

She nodded, bringing a cigarette to her mouth. "Kit said that— In the bakery yesterday, he said you were with Mary Eunice."

"I was." Then I knew what she was about say.

"Did you get it?" she said.

Still, I hesitated, because I felt like every part of this plan must be carried out with all three of us. Even an action as small as sharing information. I wished to do it when Kit was with us.—But if I withheld anything right there, Grace would see how deep the distrust between us was. If I seemed anything but forthright, the suspicion would be stronger, more prominent. This kind of stuff wouldn't vanish with time. It only grows, like a tumor. This would grow into a peril someday.

I looked around to see nobody was looking at us. Then, I turned my face to her, and gave a nod.

"You did?" Her eyes shone, as she scooted closer. "Shit, that's amazing. Where is it?"

"I hid it," I said. And when she kept staring into my face, I said, "In my cell. Nobody else knows."

"Is it thin enough for the locks?"

"I don't know yet— I think so. I couldn't just try it on my cell. It's too risky."

She bit on her lip, tapping her thumb on the inside of her knee. "Do you know where the old females' ward is?"

I said no. I never even knew there was an old ward.

"Right below our ward," she said. "We can test the— We can test _it_ there. No one goes there anymore, so we don't have to worry about anyone."

"Are the locks the same as ours?"

She shrugged. "I think."

"Ok." I gave her a nod. "Yeah, it sounds good."

"Alright, let's do it, then." She sat up in her seat, and rubbed her fists against her thighs, as though to control her sudden surge of adrenalin. "I'll leave first. You wait five minutes and go back to your cell for it. We'll meet down in the old ward." She tried to stand up, but I grabbed her by the arm.

"Wait— Now?" I asked, pulling her back in the couch.

"You got a problem with that?"

"I don't know. Shouldn't we wait for Kit?"

"We don't know when he'll come back. I bet even Arden doesn't. We don't need him to simply see if it works or not." Her eyes flew to the door. "Just— Be careful, don't let anyone catch you sneaking in there."

Then she left. As I watched her walk out of the room, my eyes met with those of the guard, Sánchez, near the door. He had his arms crossed in front of his chest, as he glared at me. I looked down.

The next five minutes was possibly the longest limbo I'd ever had to endure. Though I tried to count in my head at first, I lost track after what I thought was a minute. Being away from a clock, or even the concept of time for so long, I had forgotten how long was a second. Five minutes was just a number to me now. It was easier to count the number of times I blinked, than to count five minutes. I tried to picture the pocket watch Arden gave Mary, and the second hand of it. Ticking on the black dial, oblivious to the cruel world of human beings. Again, it worked for the first thirty seconds or so. But as I followed the hand, it seemed to gain speed, a little faster with each ticking sound—ticktack, ticktack—until it became in sync with my bouncing knees.

I gave up and decided to smoke, then. It would usually take me a couple of minutes to finish one cigarette. So I smoked at a slower pace, as I thought about what I needed to do. The fire reached the filter at last, and it was my cue to leave.

When I was walking towards the door, however, Sánchez stopped me there. "Where're you going?" he said, with a deep crevice carved just in the middle of his thick unibrow.

"The bathroom," I said.

"Is that right?" He lifted the corner of his mouth. "So you aren't following the axe murderer?"

My blood nearly froze. I said no, as I tried not to shiver.

His black eyes flashed.—There was something other than suspicion. "You think you're being clever, not leaving here together and all." His Boston accent was thicker than Jude's. "But I've seen you two talking over there." He jerked his chin up at our designated couch.

"I didn't know being nice to each other was frowned upon here," I said.

Then, he snorted and called me a dyke. "Better watch your back." He curled his lip. "You prey on other patients, and I'll see to it that you'd spend the rest of your pathetic life in solitary confinement."

He put his hands on the hip, his right hand resting on the top of his police baton. And it clicked, that this guy was no psychic or lip-reader, but simply a homophobe. Watching me and Grace talk in secret, he assumed we were hooking up.

"Can I go? I'd like not to wet the floor," I said.

* * *

 **A big, fat storm is coming, guys.**


	11. Chapter 11

I looked over my shoulder every so often, as I went back to my cell with big steps. Although I only walked by one person—an old woman with dementia—on my way, Sánchez's words forbade my heart to stop pounding. I feared that, as soon as I allowed myself to take the edge off my tension, something would jump right out of a corner and attack me.

And the nauseating fear only deepened, once I got the hanger in my pocket and stepped out of my cell. The hallways seemed darker now. The cold length of wire would be, if caught right there, a smoking gun. I began to sweat, as the chilly air in the entrance hall stroked my face. The only consolation was that most of the staff seemed too busy to even glance at me, to notice the tremor inside me. The guy in the guard room had his face buried in a magazine, and the only patient there was Rudy, the chronic masturbator.—He was a man of few words. No need to worry about him. Nobody seemed to care what I was up to, even when I stood next to the door to the old ward. With my back against the wall, I looked around for the last time, and slipped in.

The darkness welcomed me first, and then a pungent smell came second. It was a mix of old rain water, corroded walls and dead rats inside them, and piles of dust. I could feel the particles of the filth in the air, invading my throat, sticking to the walls of my lungs for good. I coughed into my elbow once.

At the far end of the corridor, Grace popped her head out of the cell. "Over here," she said. "What took you so long?"

I felt alive again at last. I walked to her. "Sánchez stopped me. That old rat thinks we're a thing."

"A thing, as in lovers?"

I nodded. "Harassed me like I slept with his mother and broke his happy family." I passed her the hanger, and leaned against the wall, as she fiddled with it for a while. "But I guess, it's better than him knowing about this, right?"

"This isn't as thin as I imagined." She stuck it in the lock hole. The clatter of the metals echoed, too loud in the empty hall. "His dad left his mom for another guy, though, apparently."

"Really?"

"He's always been a homophobic douchebag."

I shrugged. "Who isn't?"

She got down on her knees, peering into the hole, and moved the wire in there again. "Yeah, but he's extreme."

"And Jude is a mild homophobe?"

She threw me a rather detached glance. "We had this guy who liked wearing dresses a couple of years ago. Called himself Greg. Not sure if he was gay, but—" A sigh escaped her lips, either at the fruitless attempt or at the recollection. "Sánchez hated him. Absolutely hated him."

The image of his hateful eyes returned to me—his hand on the baton, with disgust in every wrinkle of his face. And another image, of him and other guards hitting Kit with their batons—the sound of human bones fracturing, and the pinkness of the flesh in the crevice of his gaping wound.

"What happened to him?" I said.

"He died," she said. "They said he killed himself in his cell at night, but that's total bullshit." Her voice, despite her words, sounded calm, as though she was reciting a poem.

"Do you think Sánchez killed him?"

"I don't _think_. I know. Everyone knows, and they got away with it."

"They? Plural?"

Stopping her hands, she gazed at me. "This is not the perfect world where people always get what they deserve. You should know better than I do."

She had a point. I should've known that by now. The world of black and white, as I'd dreamed of as a child, did not exist in real life. And the idea that all wrong doings would go punished seemed like such blind optimism. The evil and malice wore the mask of the good, claiming their actions were justified by the law of God. In this world, especially when you were in the marginalized group, being good gave you nothing, got you nowhere.

Grace's expletives filled the air. She pushed the edge of the wire against the wall. "I really don't know if this works," she said, as her fingers stroked the bent edge. "It's not _too thick_ at least. I can stick it in, and it goes in like half an inch, then gets stuck there."

"Maybe the angle is bad?"

"Yeah, so maybe, if it curls up a bit . . ." She neared the lock again. "I've seen a person do this on TV. It didn't look so hard."

I asked her if she meant a TV show, and she hummed.

"You know they don't actually _do_ it," I said.

It felt so long since the last time I'd seen TV or a motion picture. It might be more than a year ago. Although we had a television in our house, there were only few occasions where we actually sat down and watched anything.—Wendy was more of a radio type of girl, and I was always up to my ears in work. But last spring, I took her to the movie theater to watch Hitchcock's _The Birds_. It was a huge hit that everyone at my work was crazy about. "Can we watch something less gruesome? How about _Bye Bye Birdie_? It looks fun." Wendy did not fancy thriller. But _Psycho_ was one of my favorite films, and I liked the way she held my hand tight during the film. In a short period of time, in the dark, with everybody's eyes on the screen. It was the only place we could hold hands in public.

"Why didn't you go with her last night?" Grace asked.

"Who?"

"Mary Eunice," she said, almost whispering into the lock hole.

I had no clue what she was talking about at first. Then, the spoken name broke into tiny molecules in a flash, and dissolved into the air. I breathed in, and felt my head spin.

"What?" I said. My heart thumped hard against the wall.

She glanced at me. "Y'know, human senses are a funny thing. Even with something as random as someone's footsteps or breathing, if you spend a long time listening, your ears will be able to detect small differences. This person jingles her keys, this person drags his feet, blah blah." She breathed out through her nose. "Mary Eunice walks like a . . . mouse, and clears her throat. A lot actually."

I thought about lying through my teeth. I thought, if I put up an oblivious presence, she might buy it. But we both knew, it was an observation too detailed to be mere bait. She knew it. I would just make a fool of myself, and even worse, cause her mended trust to shatter into pieces again.

"Does Kit know?"

"No." She shook her head. "I'm not telling him unless the situation calls for it."

I let out a snort. "How generous of you." Whatever that meant, all I heard was that _I_ was at _her_ mercy, that she had a say in when my—and Mary's—demise should be. She was the god to us, and if I did not displease her, we could be pardoned.

"You think I'm a maniac, don't you?" she said.

 _And a psychic, apparently._

"I'm not," she said. "I don't take pleasure in threatening and telling on people, okay? If I don't have to hurt anybody, it'd choose that way. All I want is freedom— I need it." Then, with a sigh-groan, she dropped the hanger on the ground. She stood up, and almost slammed her back against the wall next to me.

"It's not working?" I asked.

She took out a cigarette and lit it, flipping back her hair so it wouldn't catch fire. "No," she said, after taking a long drag.

I took my cigarette pack out and did the same, and for a few minutes, that was all we did. It seemed like we were at a dead end. But I knew, there was one way left, an easier path than any deceptive methods we might come up with—and I knew _she_ knew. I looked down at my toes. I still felt her burning gaze on my skin.

Grace dropped her cigarette, putting it out with her heel. She continued to trample it down, hard, until the filter and the leaves spilled out. "It's almost the end of the year, isn't it?" she said, as if she was talking to herself.

"I think so."

"Almost Christmas."

"Perhaps."

She let out a lengthy breath, like a child trying to see her breath on a cold night. Then she began to talk about her hometown in France, Troyes, and how rare it was to snow there.

"But when I was eight, right before my mom died, it snowed," she said. "Only just a little. We had this tall tree in our backyard. The branches were covered by snowflakes when I woke up in the morning, and it was so . . ."

She didn't try to hide the nostalgia in her voice. And if she'd been with the right person, like Kit, she might have allowed herself to shed a few tears there.

"There's something quite frightening about snow," she said, "but we can't resist the breathtaking beauty still. It was the first time my sister and I ever saw snow." She rested her head back against the wall, with her eyes closed. And when she opened them, she looked me right in the eye, not accusing me, but simply begging. Begging to be understood. "I want to spend my life there again, not here. I want to start over in the city that holds my happiest memories. Don't you? Don't you want to go home?"

I couldn't find anything to say, so instead stared at a dark spot on the ground.

She lit another cigarette. "What's going on between you and Mary Eunice?" she said, as she threw the dead match against the wall before us.

"Nothing's going on," I said.

"She isn't worth protecting."

"Don't say that."

"Why do you like her?" It wasn't so much a question as a statement—we both knew it. "She's no different from the people you loathe."

"She is," I said. "Her heart is purer than anybody else's."

She snorted, shaking her head as she took a drag. "Purity," she said. "A human could be as pure as an angel and still be cruel at the same time . . . Just like snow."

"She is not cruel."

"Because you don't know her."

I got my back off the wall and faced her, close. "I don't know if you two have a history," I said, "or if you're just trying to get me to turn my back on her, but stop. Just stop." I glared into her eyes, and the condescending glint in them got on my nerves even more. "It is because of her I'm still alive. She saved my life—and still does, every day. You're the one who doesn't—"

"Saved you." She brought the cigarette to her mouth, exhaling as if my face wasn't right in front of hers.

Although the smoke stung my eyes, I didn't blink. "Do not talk about her like that, ever again."

Then she let out a laugh, a sound void of any emotion, as if she was a simply machine. And like a machine, the fire in her eyes vanished abruptly. She looked down. "I had a friend—a mentor, when I first came here," she said. "She wasn't much older than I was, but seemed so much wiser, carrying the burden of the whole world on her shoulders." She looked down at her toes, as she took another drag. "She knew pain, how it feels to be misunderstood, too well for someone that young."

"What does she have to do with this?"

"Everything," she said. "Olga and Mary Eunice were close. They were like sisters—only except, they weren't. No. Olga was in love with her." As her shining eyes stared into mine, a tear ran down her cheek. "And she told Mary Eunice—I told her not to, told her it'd only get her in trouble. But she didn't listen." Her pale cheeks grew pink, a deep crease between her brows. Taking a deep breath, she wiped her nose with her sleeve. "All she wanted was for Mary Eunice to know." She shut her eyes tight. "And you know what happened? Do you? Has your sweet Mary Eunice ever told you anything about her?"

"I—" I swallowed. "No."

"She told Jude about it." She raised her cigarette to her mouth, only to find it'd died a while ago. She threw it to the ground. "Jude. Fucking Jude! And guess what happened. Just guess."

I bit my lip.

"She died a week after that, in her sleep, just like the other guy."

It was almost physically impossible to breathe, with the lump in my throat so big. Every second of my effort to find words ended with more tears in my eyes, with dizzy nausea. I thought I was going to black out right there. "But—" I heard myself say. "She— Mary didn't know that was gonna happen. She only— Only—"

"Only told her boss about the thing that was bothering her?" she said. "And her family, too?" She breathed in, so deeply I felt like she'd never breathe out. "She told Olga's family about that, too, Lana. When they came to claim her body, Mary Eunice told them—"

I shook her head. "No—" But what I was saying no to, I didn't know. To the ugly face of Mary I never knew? To hear any more of her past?

"She did," Grace said. "She told her mom, her dad, her brothers— Humiliating her even after death!" She gritted her teeth. Her tears fell to the ground, making a small dot near her toe. "They left without her body, left her here to rot by herself, because— Because the shame was way greater than their grief. And everybody understood it, thought nothing of it, and—"

I stood there still, as the world seemed to be closing on me.

"I don't even know what they did with her body. There was no funeral or anything," she said. "It's the kind of world we live in." She took a deep breath, for the last time. "And Mary Eunice is part of it."


	12. Chapter 12

**Thank you for your kind words, everybody! It's only the beginning of this roller coaster.**

* * *

I wished I hadn't gotten the stupid coat hanger. I wished I hadn't gone with Grace. I wished I'd just let them continue to doubt me and my loyalty. I wished—

What did I wish, then?— Blindness? A false sense of security, encompassed by Mary's innocence? Colorful lights that camouflaged the ugly picture? The truth. It was the thing, the only thing in life, whose darkness and brightness always terrified me. Because of it, because I sought it with insatiable appetite, it put shackles on me, robbed me of my love, kept me in a box. But I was still defiant, proud of being a truth-seeker. How ironic. How laughable. All this time, the closest truth, Mary Eunice, had been right before my eyes and I still couldn't see. I'd always feared the numbness that the claw of insanity would embed in me. And I kept running away, without knowing it'd already caught me, tight in its grip.

After Grace and I parted, the library duty waited for me. For the first time, I did not care about Alex and their letter. I did not care about anything. I couldn't even if I wanted to.

The place was much more well-organized compared to a couple of weeks ago. No books covering the surface of the floor any longer. Every book in the shelves aligned next to each other in the correct position.— And that very tidiness made the place seem even colder. It made my bones shiver. It made my head reel. Everything felt wrong. Had there been any energy left in me, I might've grabbed a stack of magazines or two, and thrown them about the floor. But I just stared into space, like a zombie. There was nothing left in me.

As I pressed my back flat against the wall, the barren coldness ran through every vein in my body. I slid down. The roughness of the concrete made my gown rise, scratching my bare skin, until my ass hit the ground. My head pounded. Even the slightest movement—breathing, blinking, swallowing—exacerbated the pain, pushing me further into the depth of _it_. I buried my face in my knees, and everything went black. Everything was dark, and silent, only the sound of my heart creating ripples in the eternal abyss—one after another, after another, after another.

.

I might have fallen asleep there. I might have not. I couldn't tell. It was one of these limbo-like moments.—Even though my system was shut down, my ears continued to deliver sounds to the brain, and never let me rest. Although it felt like I'd been awake the whole time, the numbness of my legs said otherwise.

Disoriented, I slid my hand along the wall. I kept my eyes closed, and relied solely on my sense of touch, until my fingers found the hole and the letter inside it.

 _-Angelic minds, they say, by simple intelligence_

 _Behold the Forms of nature._

 _They discern_

 _Unerringly the Archtypes, all the verities_

 _Which mortals lack or indirectly learn.-_

It said, and ended with,

 _-This makes me think of you.-_

I couldn't help smiling at that.— Alex never seemed to give up on the idea that I was a creature of angelic essence. My human heart swell. It was easy like this, with them, no matter what was going on in my life. And I closed my eyes for a few moments, and imagined their blurry figure standing by the bookshelf. How many books, prose, verse did they skim through, to find something to share with me? How delighted were they when the word _angelic_ came into view? How many times did they read the particular part, until deciding that was the one?

I'd probably never know.

What a peculiar world we live in. All these letters, words, and emotions traveling between us like some kind of a lifeline, and we still have no means to stand face to face with each other. Even if we were to meet again outside these walls, we would hardly exchange glances. We would go separate ways again, without a chance to savor the idea of what-ifs. We knew a lot about each other. We were strangers.

###

Although the letter from Alex restored some of my vitality, it was not to the extent that I could bother going back to the common room. Not enough energy or courage—the word audacity may be more suitable—to look at Grace's face, and not see scars in her eyes. So I slept in my cell, like a log, as if to compensate for the less-than-decent slumber I had in the library.

With hopeless hope, I hoped that, when I opened my eyes, this nightmare would end. I'd feel Wendy in my arms, and I'd say to her, "Boy, what a crazy dream I had!" And she'd kiss me on the cheek, blame it on my hectic work, and suggest a morning off. We'd waste the day away in our bed. Together, just like we always did, just like I'd thought we'd always do.

It was peaceful for a while.

And then, someone sat on the bed and put their hand on my shoulder. I jerked awake. The incoming sunlight had weakened, but the sudden invasion of light still pricked my eyeballs, as I blinked and squinted at the peace-interrupter—Grace, with redness around her puffy eyes.

I suddenly felt exposed and vulnerable to just lie there, so I sat up. "I thought you were Jude." My heart beat against my knees, as I hugged them close to my chest.

"Bad dreams, huh?" she said. Her voice sounded a bit nasal.

"What do you want?"

"Nothing. Kit sent me to check upon you, is all. Are you ok?"

"Would you be ok," I said, "if you were me?" My own voice sounded strange in my ears, so far from myself. "The love of my life betrayed me. The person I trusted the most turned out to be a . . ." Staring at the constellations of moth holes in the blanket, I searched for a word, anything but—

"Bigot," she said.

The world shrunk away for a second. "Would you be ok?"

"Well—" The coils in the mattress creaked, as she repositioned herself. "I guess not."

"I swore to myself I'd never trust anyone."

It was easy to build a fortress. That was what I'd been doing my entire life. Being in the field dominated by men meant I had to be on my toes day and night, watching out for myself so nobody would take advantage of me. It didn't matter how nice someone seemed to be on the surface. Men, women, young, old, nothing mattered. They put their friendly masks on, until they got what they wanted. It was the way of us—me included. But with Mary, it was different.— Benevolence, compassion, and her insecurities reigned her inner world. Because of this, she was utterly blind to her own humanness, her capability of hurting someone.

And that was the problem.—The most dangerous is when someone doesn't know how dangerous they could be, how much heartbreak they could cause. There is no shield or armor for that kind of people. You only accept the wound as it is, and pray it'll never happen again.

"Yeah," Grace said. "I know how that feels."

"I thought I was stronger than that."

"But it's not about strength. It's what it means to be a human. To trust."

"It's irrational," I said.

"Also, another thing about being a human. We can't live without depending on each other, Lana. And dependence comes with hope. To trust someone means to hope."

"Preachy."

"I know. I hate it." She let out a breathy chuckle. "I guess, what I'm saying is that, I trust you. And I want you to trust me, too."

I looked up and found her weak smile. Dust wafted in the narrow beam of sunlight coming through the window, and danced around her.

She shrugged, as her smile grew. "No pressure."

I grabbed the blanket, holding my knees even closer. Not once in my life had I ever felt so overwhelmed, so tormented to have someone relying on me. It was always such a positive, validating sensation—and isn't it supposed to be so? But this felt like the total opposite. This felt heavy, with the expectations almost tangible in the air that I breathed, weighing me down.

"I need more time to think." It was all I could say. I lay down with my back facing her.

As I did so, she let out a sigh. She tapped her fingers on the mattress— _pat, pat, pat_ —at the speed of her breathing, a little slower than my heartbeat. Thinking, wondering how, after the calamitous revelation, I still needed more convincing.

"Alright," she said, and stood up. The coils shrieked as they were freed from the weight that'd been holding them down. The recoil rippled across the whole bed, and pushed my body up for a brief moment. She took exactly five steps, and stopped in the doorway.

I remained in my fetus position.

"Come to the common room later if you can," she said. "Kit's worried."

About his safety, of course, not about my mental state. And he had every reason to focus all of his thoughts on himself, as his incarceration was a ticking bomb. Unlike me or Grace, he didn't have the luxury of waiting for the perfect opportunity for escape. Every second that Briarcliff threw away in its filth bucket, in his ears, was the sound of the rope tightening around his neck, or the sound of his brain fried in the electric chair, depending on the method of execution the state of Massachusetts practiced.

I wanted to care about him, as much as I cared about myself.

"Grace?"

"Yeah?"

"What if . . ." I sought words. The right words. "What'd you do if . . ." I realized I was biting my nail off, so dropped my hand.

She walked to the foot of the bed. "What is it?" There was eerie sweetness in her voice.

"What if your friend, Olga . . . was still alive, and—"

"But she's not," she said. "Mary Eunice killed her."

My heart beat, and sank into the mattress at the same time. I wished every word that came out of her mouth wouldn't have to be such a sharp knife.

"I know, but—" My breath came out trembling, blowing a dark hair off the pillow. "But what if she was, and she couldn't come with us or know that you're leaving. She'd never learn why you left her behind. She might not even know you left, and wait forever, hoping someday she'd run away with you . . . Would you still go, without her?"

"Mary Eunice is not an inmate," she said. "She can leave this filth whenever she wants."

Of course, she thought I was talking about Mary. I lay quiet and still, aware of her gaze. The vague silhouette of Alex flickered in the back of my mind, crouching down by the hole, peeking into it, and only finding the letter that they left days ago. They might still come by, though not as frequently any longer, and search in the hole just the same. Time would pass—days, weeks, or even years. And they'd finally realize that they'd been abandoned, left behind in the dark, by their _angel_. The screams would come back haunting them. The moon would turn into a mere cold stone in the sky. I could almost hear them whisper in the hole, _She is the devil_.

It wasn't that I didn't want to save Kit. But if someone was to condemn me for even thinking about comparing his life and Alex—my curiosity—then, I would have no words to defend myself.

Grace sighed at last, quite loudly. "I'd still go without her," she said. "Olga would sacrifice herself if I could breathe the air of Troyes again." She spoke with such confidence, such precision in her voice, without a moment of hesitation. Her faith in her friend made me even more miserable.

"Would she?" I asked. "Or do you wish she would?"

"She would, I know it."

"How?" My voice cracked.

The answer I got was a silence, but I knew she was still there. I lifted my head off the pillow and turned my head, and found her looking at me. There was a crease between her brows, as she tilted her head to the side. Her double tooth rested on her bottom lip, as she bit it there. She blinked once. She tilted her head a little more. She again blinked.—It made me feel small. And then, I realized it was not disapproval or hostility between her brows, but puzzlement, and pity.

"Sacrifice is not a one-way street. It has to be made and received." she said. "I'd be her stepping stone so she could climb the wall, and I'd force her to go if she ever refused." Her speech sounded smooth, every word of it, as though she'd repeated the lines over and over again before, to brand the line into her brain, to get her lips to memorize the movement. And perhaps she had. Perhaps, with Olga repeating the same by her side. She dropped her gaze, shaking her head. "Wouldn't you?"

And overwhelming embarrassment inundated me at the tone of her voice, so fragile, so confused.

"I would," I said to her. Then I tried to think about Alex, and whether they'd make the same choice for me.—They would, wouldn't they? "Yes, I would."

.

I went back to sleep again—or at least I tried to. But every time silence filled the whole ward, the voice of Grace and her words rang in my ears. They solidified in my head. Each word had a shape and color. And the harder I attempted to mute them, the clearer and louder they became. I couldn't silence them, or run away from them. I could see the words written on paper, so impeccable, without a typo, without a smudge of black ink.

And her eyes, they looked familiar—the hazy disappointment in them—so much they unnerved me. I remembered them well, because they were mine. They were the reflection of my little self, the girl who couldn't understand any darkness of the humanity. The girl who tilted her head at the self-serving behavior of adults.—Time had passed, life had happened, and the world that I loathed as a child now had me in it. What a cosmic joke it was that Grace had her innocence preserved better than me.

I closed my eyes.

Then, there was another set of footsteps in the corridor. Compared to Grace's—or any inmate's—pattering footsteps, this had sharpness to it. The heels clicked on the ground. I heard apprehension in the quick series of cautious steps— _like a mouse_ , Grace said. It was the sound that used to mean safety and comfort on sleepless nights. Now, it was the last thing I longed to hear.

Mary Eunice stopped in front of my cell, and a short silence followed—all too familiar steps of the routine.

 _Now she will clear her throat_ , I thought.

And she did, before pushing the door open and stepping inside. I kept my eyes closed, my body still, my breathing regular, so she'd think I was asleep.

"Miss Winters?" she said at the foot of the bed. The whisper almost melted in the air with her breath.

I continued _sleeping_.

She sighed, and put something on the stool, something metallic but also light. Then she came closer, standing at the bedside. I felt her gaze caress every one of my eyelashes. I fought the urge to fidget, open my eyes, anything to get rid of the bizarre feeling. As seconds ticked away, my palms began to sweat. She stayed still and quiet. I feared that, if she looked closely, she might be able to see my neck veins pulsating.—That idea itself was enough for my heart to race faster, for my limbs to go numb. The thuds of my heart hit the mattress and echoed inside the coiled cave under my body.

It felt like an eternity, until I heard her clothes rustle. Her fingers brushed my hair out of my face. I nearly flinched, but managed to stop myself there. She rested her hand on my forehead, pressing a little. I felt the coldness of her skin burning mine, and my heat being absorbed in her skin.—I'd faked sick yesterday, I remembered.

After she left, I found a silver tray placed on the stool, with a glass of water and meds—for fever, most likely—on it. I chugged the water, and tossed the meds in the filth bucket. Although I didn't want to think about her, the skin her fingers touched still tingled.

.

No, I didn't want to think about her, because now everything was different. They'd changed, what it meant to be by her side, what her eyes resembled, what the crucifix in her hand symbolized.

 _You don't know about my life, Miss Winters._

She was goddamn right.

Everything had changed, and everything remained the same. I needed escape, nothing else, from the very beginning. Sacrifice had to be made, and received. Mary would be it. Alex would be it. And a part of me, too.

* * *

 **A/N: I do not own the poem in the letter. It's C. S. Lewis' poem _On Being a Human._**


	13. Chapter 13

My head was clear the next morning. Every movement of my body was under control, as though someone splashed water on my face and slapped all the haze out of me. Although the morning electro-shock therapy left more scars on my temples, the pain only cleared my mind even more. I could feel every pore on my skin, and the air that caressed the surface of my body, as I walked to the common room.

Kit and Grace sat at the chess table. They had an ashtray on the board instead of chess pieces. Kit was the first one to see me standing near the door. Then, Grace followed his gaze and turned around in her seat, her eyes wide and piercing. The distance between us was rather big, but I still could see every hue of her eyes smoldering. This was the judgement day, she knew it.

I walked to them and pulled up a chair.

Kit leaned in towards me. "My lawyer's called. She said the prosecutors got the results of my psycho-analysis." The crease between his brows seemed even deeper than usual.

"Already?" I said.

"I could go to trial within a year."

I looked at Grace, found her eyes glued to me. Without speaking, she kept her gaze on me, even as she flicked her cigarette above the ashtray. Silence seemed to be her language today, and she was fluent in it.

I looked at Kit, as he tore the filter off his cigarette. There was a new gash on his upper lip, untreated, swollen around the edges. It almost covered the old scar that one of the guards had given him a while ago. And there sat a bruise on his cheek, too. Although I didn't know what'd happened while I was away, I knew what the staff would say. They would claim he'd been in a fight, or that it was reasonable sanction.—But there was no doubt it was unilateral violence. He never fought back. His knuckles were free of bruises.

I knew then, that believing he had a year was such reckless optimism. He'd never make it to the trial—no matter what the verdict would say—because there were plenty of people who itched to take care of the issue themselves. They would kill him, and make up a story. Anything would do. _Bloody Face dead, justice done._ I could see it on the front page of major papers. People would celebrate the news, despite the mountain of evidence suggesting otherwise.

I squeezed his hand. "You'll be fine, I promise," I said. "I'm going to get you out of here." Then I looked at Grace. "We are going to get out of here, three of us."

.

We talked about the plan, then, about how we would obtain the keys. This was not something a person—by that I mean, me—could achieve with spontaneity. In fact, such spontaneity could not play a role here. If stealing a coat hanger required as much effort as it had, this would certainly cost something grander.

"When I came here, I hid my car in the woods," I said.

Grace's face lit up. "We can drive off."

"So, all we need is a concrete plan to get out," I said. "Once we're out, we might as well be free."

Although Mary fell asleep on me, it was not as a huge advantage as I hoped. Her sleep was so light that the slightest movement of my body could disturb it. She would wake up, even before she heard the jiggling of the keys. Still, there might be a way, if I could deepen her sleep somehow.

"So, who's your friend?" Kit said. "We can't plan anything unless we know who we're dealing with."

Grace hadn't told him, true to her words. He might not be even aware of the secret. I can't say it didn't surprise me.

"It's, um . . ." I looked around. There was nobody around to eavesdrop. "It's Mary Eunice."

His eyes narrowed, as his brows knitted together. He parted his lips to say something, but didn't. He looked at Grace, with his cigarette perched on his bottom lip and forgotten, and looked at me again. "You mean, the one who's always crying?" he said.

"She isn't always crying."

But the description was more accurate than anything else. Mary could smile, like a child, but that aspect of her seemed to be reserved only for me. Around other people, it seemed, she was either crying or fighting back her tears most of the time. I couldn't blame him for thinking that way.

"Yeah, but you know, _the_ Sister Mary Eunice?"

"Yeah."

"The blonde one?" he asked again, as if there was more than one Mary Eunice McKee in Briarcliff Manor.

"Yeah, that's her."

"Jude's favorite."

This one, his tone failed to tell if it was a question or a statement. Either way, it was rhetorical, so I didn't answer.

He took a long drag on his cigarette. And as the new knowledge finally sank in, the crease between his brows disappeared. "Of all people," he said, "she is the easiest." Then he gave us a smile. A crooked smile, as the cut in his lip didn't seemed to allow it. "It's not going to be as difficult as I thought."

"We still need to plan, though." Grace mimicked his smile. "She may be slow—" Her eyes shifted to me. "— but she still has eyes."

I didn't let the remark affect me in any way. Not anymore.

We spend quite a lot of time scheming, the whole morning, in fact. Our pitiful minds took some parts of the blame, but it mostly had to do with the other people around us. It was not a closed chamber we were in. Confidentiality was a scarce resource. When another person came closer to our table, the first one of us to notice their presence would sink back in the chair. The other two would follow suit, and we would turn into stones, as long as the outsider was within a ten-foot radius. We couldn't take any risk, but the fact didn't make it any less irritating every time we had to halt our talk. The table shook as Kit jiggled his knees. The ash in the ashtray floated every time Grace let out a heavy sigh. And every tinkle of a bell in the Christmas music only intensified my urge to rip my hair out of my head.

"This is getting nowhere," Kit said, after another much-unneeded standstill.

During the silence, he had collected cigarette ash within a dark square of the chessboard. A tiny rug of ash. He laid the entire side of his middle finger flat on the board, and fixed up the edges until it was a more perfect square.

"Why don't you just," Grace said, "kick her downstairs on your way to the chapel?" She drew her brows together, as she blankly stared at Kit's artwork.

"Grace, please." I put my head in my hands.

"What?"

"How many times do I have to tell you that we are not resorting to violence?" I said. "If we do, we will just stoop to their level."

She let out a puff of air.

"Lana, can I ask you something?" Kit said.

"Yes?"

But he hesitated. He picked at the gash in his lip, opening and closing his mouth, as though to taste the words on his tongue before they came out. Guessing from his grimace, those words didn't taste good.

"Are you, um," he said. "Are you and Mary Eunice a couple?"

"Excuse me?" My voice came out more guttural than I'd intended.

Grace gagged next to me.

"'M not judging." He shook his head, wide eyed. "I'm not implying anything."

"Then why the hell did you ask that?" Grace said.

"Just thought— Couldn't you—" He looked down, and his heavy breath blew off the rug of ash. "I thought if you took her clothes off . . ."

Did this question need a response? Sánchez, and now Kit. All these people, so quick to assume things, especially when the subject was inappropriate. While part of me found this laughable, I had to note this was a good indication of how Jude would see it if she ever found out. I kept staring at him, until he grew uncomfortable. But then, Grace cleared her throat and sank back in her chair. She glared into the space behind me. Kit and I mimicked her, as nimble as a well-trained army.

A loud bang rung out as Spivey slammed his hands, palms down, on the table. The chessboard rattled once.

"What are you three talking about, whispering an' all?" he said, standing between me and Kit, towering over us.

"Nothing." Kit avoided his eyes, like he was a dangerous animal.

Spivey drew his face close to him. "Then why don't you keep talking?" He then turned his head to me and Grace. "You won't be bullies and make me the odd one out here, right? Right, ladies?"

A waxy strand of his dark hair—a cockroach antenna—fell into his forehead. I don't know where he got it, but he smelled alcohol. His breath, and the sweat on his chest. The heat radiated off his skin, heavy with the pungent scent.

"It's personal," I said.

"Personal?" He laughed, breathing right in my face. "Like what? You pussy-eating cunt?" His saliva flew out of his mouth.

"Hey, leave her alone," Kit said. And that seemed to provoke the drunken cockroach.

He kicked the leg of Kit's chair, and grabbed him by the collar, lifting him off the chair. Grace and I stood up. The four of us were one jumble of limbs, as we struggled to pry the men away from each other. Spivey swung his arm and shook my hand off. Kit didn't fight.

Not everything he whispered in Kit's ear was audible, but I heard him say, "Tell me what to do again, and I will do more than what I did yesterday."

"Let him go," Grace said.

Despite the situation, none of us—Spivey was not included—raised our voices. One man with anger issues was an enough interrupter for us, for our planning. The last thing we wanted was more people lingering around our table.

I looked around, and saw one of the male staff approaching us.

"Who started it?"

He didn't even bother to know what was going on. We didn't bother to tell him. Important was the culprit, and when all of our eyes stared at one person, the man put his hand on the tense shoulder of Spivey.

"Alright, let's go," he said.

Spivey let go of Kit, pushing him as he did so. "Come on, Wagner." He gave a crooked smile. "I didn't do nothing, you know that."

"You best not," Wagner said. "Don't want to sleep in solitary again tonight, do you?"

The threat seemed to work. Spivey, though with much reluctance and a grudging glare, walked away. I watched his back as he slammed his fist against the side of his thigh. He snatched a pack of cigarette from an old man, and cursed at anyone who stood around him. I watched him still, as he walked out of the common room, brushing past the guard there, Sánchez.—He was looking at me.

I looked away, and looked at Kit, who was rummaging in the ashtray. He picked a burn-out cigarette that still looked smokable, and lit it. He grimaced, as he fixed his crumpled collar.

I sat down. "We are not dating," I said.

His hand stopped. His eyes traveled from me to Grace, as if he had no clue what I was referring to. Then he said,

"Oh . . ." He fiddled with his cigarette. "Okay. Sorry— I just thought I'd ask."

"What was the point of your question anyway?"

"I thought if her clothes were off, the keys would be, too," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "And it'd be easier to steal them . . ."

"That's so out of the question, Kit."

He scratched his head. "I know that now."

"How about you blackmail her?" Grace said. "She lets you out. Not something she's supposed to do."

"Yeah, and I go with her," I said. "It wouldn't make sense to point a gun at somebody when you know it will definitely backfire, would it?"

I stubbed my cigarette out. And for the first time in a while that morning, we sat in silence even without any interruption. All the words, useless words sunk with the weight of air. We had spoken with such blind optimism. The more the silence continued, the more the awful Christmas music invaded my mind. The cheery sounds ate away at my thoughts, my determination, my sanity.

I looked at the entrance and saw Sánchez, still looking at me. His eyes flashed. He didn't blink, as if he had no eyelids. Just like a fish.—I saw his jaw move, and thought of gills. I couldn't look away. There was a small bud of fear in me, and as seconds ticked away, it absorbed the vitriolic gaze and grew bigger. If I ever blinked, I felt, he would appear right behind me before I reopened my eyes, and kill me there. He might crack my skull open with his baton, or perhaps wrap his coarse fingers around my neck. Although I knew it was irrational, the thought felt so sharp, so controlling. It left me breathless for a while.

It was then that the Monsignor walked in. His glasses gave him the look of wisdom he so lacked. He chatted with Sánchez, and walked around the room. The few inmates didn't even acknowledge his presence, even when they were spoken to. After that happened three or four times, the Monsignor surrendered. He just walked out, with his ever tolerant smile. I watched him go, just like I watched Spivey. And as I did so, an idea popped up in my head. A crazy one, but not as crazy and impossible as getting Mary to strip in front of me.

"Grace, when was the last time you went to church?" I asked.

Her eyes narrowed. "For what? A sermon?"

"Or anything. Have you ever been to a church?"

"Sure, when I was an illiterate old man with a gray beard in England during the dark ages."

The essence of the answer was somewhat predictable. I opted not to respond to the extra sass.

I turned to Kit. "Have you?" I said. "In this lifetime?"

"Yeah," he said, "before Alma and I got married, though. After that, there was no church that welcomed us."

"Why? You got something?" Grace leaned in to me.

"I think so. I just need to—"

A loud squeal echoed in the room, and I flinched. We all did.

But, just as fast as we regained our non-suspicious poise, Pepper came behind us, singing to the music as she twirled with her doll. She sat in the couch near our table, right within earshot. I heaved a sigh of relief as the other two did the same. There was no risk that the little pinhead could pose.

I cleared my throat. "Do you know if they keep wine in the chapel?"

I asked, because I couldn't seem to remember it myself. No matter how many times or how hard I searched among my recollections, all that came back to my mind was the paleness of Mary's skin, and the warmth of her hand.

Kit knotted his brows. "Communal wine?"

"Whatever it's called," I said. "Do you think they have it here?"

"I . . . think?" he said.

"Are you trying to get Mary Eunice to drink it?" Grace shook her head. "It's not going to work. You only drink a small portion of it. It won't be enough to get her drunk."

"With only wine, it won't," I said. "But if we slip sleeping pills into it—"

I looked into her eyes. They moved to Kit and came back to me, thinking, and seeing the same hope that I saw. She chewed on her lip, and cocked her brow.

Kit leaned in to me. "But still, she has to take more than a sip," he said. "How're we going to do that? It's not like she'll drink a glass of it voluntarily."

"I know," I said. "But I don't think it will be a problem."

"What do you mean?"

I searched for words, because it was just my gut feeling. An inexplicable speculation. But if things could go the way they did when I made Mary smoke without much effort—

"Just— Don't worry about that," I said.

All I'd need to do was to say a few right words, and she'd follow the script. putting a glass to her lips. She would put a glass to her lips. She might even smile her innocent, timid smile. It'd be a piece of cake. She trusted me. She still believed I was her dear friend.—I'd be out in no time.


	14. Chapter 14

After the lunch, I followed Grace to her cell. She kept some sleeping pills there, in a tiny hole in the wall, along with other stuff. She blew on the oval grey pills in her hand, three of them, and handed them to me. I'd never seen them before. The surfaces were sort of gluey, with some particles of dust stuck to them.

They reminded me of Sweethearts candies Wendy once gave me for Valentine's Day. It was right after we'd moved in together in the beginning of 1960. Of course, that led to some cheesy stuff you only wish to see in the films. But both of us being not so sweet-toothed, the candies went forgotten in a pantry of our kitchen for almost three weeks. Although they were not as melty as chocolate, the heat from the stove had snuck into the pack and, by the time I remembered their existence, softened them. Some pieces melted together and became rather big chunks.

"How old are these?" I asked Grace.

She threw a glance at my hand, and at me. "Why?"

"They look gross."

"So?" she said. "Do you prefer fresher ones to poison her with?"

I didn't give her an answer.

She let out a heavy breath. "That's all I got. They are the strongest they have." She sunk into the bed with a thud, a leg dangling. "It should be dry on the inside, anyway. It's not going to be a problem once they're powered."

"And what's the right dose?"

The pills that they gave me every night—and that I dumped in the filth bucket every night—were of a different kind. They were white, more round, perhaps smaller. And they gave me usually two.

"Why do you care?" she said.

It was a familiar tone. I heard it before, in the old females' ward, when she asked me why I liked Mary. I did not like how challenging she had sounded back then. I did not like it now, either.

"I'd like to not accidentally overdose and kill her," I said.

Then her lip curled in a tiny sneer. Her fingers found a loose thread in her sock, and she pulled at it, twisting it around her index finger. There was a quiet snapping sound, as she wrenched it off.

"Grace."

"It's two or three." She shrugged. "I don't know."

"Which is it?" I said. Her rather careless, obsessive attitude grated on my nerves.

She did not raise her face, but looked at me through her messy bangs. She just shrugged.

"Goddamn it, Grace. I get it! You hate her. You want to destroy her!"

I made a fist with the pills in my palm and pressed against my thigh. My patience was wearing off, and I thought, if I didn't do so, I might throw them against the wall on the spur of the moment.

"Honestly, it's none of my fucking business you want to solve problems with the use of violence," I said. "Go ahead. You want to use an axe on her, too? Fine! Keep on hating her. I hate her, too. But—"

"Do you?"

I hesitated for a brief moment. "Yes," I said, because it was the truth.

"But you don't cry or scream."

Tantrum. She was throwing a tantrum right here.

"For fuck's sake— So is that how you expect me to act?" I said, and got closer to her. The edge of the bed dug into my thigh. "Too bad I don't meet your expectations of whatever you think I am. But I got better things to do than wasting my tears on her! I hate her, Grace, okay? I do. I fucking loathe her. She can rot with this godless place, and it'll be none of my business. But being hysteric like you isn't my option. I'm not going to kill her, and carry the label of a murderer and the weight of it for the rest of my life."

When I finished speaking, my throat ached from the angry whispering. My stomach felt tense from keeping myself from screaming. Grace's eyes were wide. From consternation or panic, I didn't care to identify. I felt dizzy. I coughed a few times. And after that, I straightened my back and stared down at Grace.

"Two or three?" I asked again.

Her lips tightened. "Two," she said. She continued to fiddle with the frazzled rim of the sock.

"And how long does it take until they take effect?"

"15 to 30 minutes."

"Good," I said, as I opened the door. "Stay awake tonight. Tell Kit the same."

I went back to my cell, and as soon as the door clicked shut, I opened my hand. My palm felt sticky with sweat. The pills had absorbed the heat and moisture. They stuck to my skin, so much they didn't fall off when I turned my palm downward. I walked to the bed and grabbed one of letters from Alex out of the mattress.

 _-The moon is exquisitely beautiful tonight. It seems as though it is bigger and closer, but could that be?_

 _I don't have any happy memories of Christmas. This season makes my loneliness even more tangible—but I have you now, don't I? Tell me, what is the best Christmas gift your parents have ever given you?-_

It was from the earlier stage of our friendship. About two weeks after the first exchange, I'd say, because I remember shivering at the faint chill as I sat on the library floor. The hopeful tone of their words had offered me solace then, and now pained me with guilt.

I powered the pills. With the nail of my thumb, I scraped and collected them on the piece of paper. But it turned out to be harder than I'd imagined, as the surface was smooth and rocky. I dug my nail into it, but it would simply slide and could not seem to make the first incision. My nail was too smooth on the edge for this—or at least I thought with my desperate mind—so I rubbed it against the concrete wall, until the edge was coarse like sand paper. It became rather easy, I suppose, after destroying the first layer of the pill. I scraped so there'd be a line in the middle, and made a mirror twin of line on the other side. And then, when the incisions were deep enough, I snapped the pill in half. I found that it was more efficient to rub the two pieces against each other than using my nail. That way, I didn't need to dab the particles off my fingertip every so often, either.

Even then, I couldn't go faster enough. Whenever there were footsteps, or the sound of the corridor door creak open, my hand had to stop. I'd stop my breathing with it, waiting for the disruption to pass. And if someone walked closer to my cell, I'd hide the entire set in the mattress.

As my hands moved, I thought about Grace and how she'd acted earlier, and the words that'd come out of my own mouth. Did I mean everything I said, or was it just something to get her mouth shut?—My introspection didn't give me an answer. It was still true that my feelings toward Mary had changed in a negative way. And perhaps she really did deserve to rot with Briarcliff. Still, did I wish her dead like Grace did? If Grace really did use an axe on Mary, would I ever let her?

But before I could reach to a conclusion, there came a time when the two pills became a complete pile of powder. It started to get dark outside. I carefully folded the paper, hid it back, and decided to take a nap until dinner.

My heart raced for the night to come, and—if luck decided to side with us—for the freedom to come.

Nothing about this plan was difficult. But I had to admit that we were relying on luck more than a group of asylum-breakers should. If there was no wine, we'd have to make changes in the plan. If Mary didn't come to my cell at all, we could go nowhere.—The second was what I feared most. I didn't tell Kit and Grace, but Mary might not come tonight or tomorrow. I'd stood her up two days in a row. Perhaps she would give up on me, on us, and choose to spend the night in her warm bed, alone. Or, perhaps she'd be in town running errands for Arden.

###

Despite all the worries and fears that preoccupied me the entire day, though, Mary did come. She came, but not alone or in the middle of the night. It was with Jude, for a room search.

Their arrival shook the ward like a violent earthquake that gave no forewarning. The guards banged on the cell doors, as the keys jiggled from their belt, sometimes dragging inmates out of their cells if they were not quick enough. Some obeyed in silence, some shrieked, some cried. The shouts of the guards drowned out all the chaotic noises. And in the center of them all, Jude walked. Her gait was the definition of confidence, each step big and slow, that keeps you anxious with inexplicable dread.

She stopped in front of me, and smiled. "Good evening, Miss Winters," she said. "Excited for this?"

Her favorite guard, Frank—the same one that found my notes in the pillowcase—walked into my cell.

"Look anywhere, you won't find a thing," I said to him, and looked at Jude. "I have nothing to hide."

"Quite confident, are we?"

Frank looked under the bed, lifted the mattress, and stuck his hand in the pillowcase. My heart remained calm. The hole in the mattress was on the other side of him, and it would've been too dark for his old eyes to spot such a small slit.

"Found anything, Frank?" Jude asked.

"Nope, looks pretty clean to me." He dusted his hands as if to say job done, before patting on his thighs.

Jude waved her clipboard, gesturing towards the bed. "Check inside the pillowcase."

"Already did. As clean as a whistle."

It was an answer she clearly didn't like. She drew small circles in the air with her pen, as she pointed it at my sweater.

"Let's see what's inside your pockets, shall we?" she said. She held out the clipboard, face-up.

I dug into my pockets and stacked everything on it—a match box, a crumpled pack of Marlboro, and a piece of bread, which had fossilized over the weeks of residency in there, in oblivion. When I said I'd throw it at Spivey, it was only wishful thinking.—Now it really seemed capable of doing a great deal of harm, only if utilized with something apt, say, like a slingshot. Then I would feed the blood-stained bread to a duck afterwards, or just throw it in water. The evidence of the crime would disappear for good. It'd make a great crime novel.

Jude picked it up, with a combination of curiosity, disgust, and bafflement curling up her lip.

"What is that?" Frank seemed just as troubled.

"It's hard bread," she said, unamused. A few crumbs spread across the clipboard as the big chunk landed. "Now, tell me, Miss Winters. What exactly were you going to do with this? Were you so torn apart by your _friend_ 's betrayal that you decided to associate yourself with rats?"

Her eyes narrowed, in a way that a renowned journalist might do in an interview with a petty criminal. Answers did not matter, as much as the show they put on for the world to see.

I did not answer.

"Do rats like cucumbers, Sister Jude?" Shelly said. Her hand slithered along the doorframe, as she wriggled her hips. "Because I have one in my cell right now."

Jude smirked. "Don't excite yourself too much, Shelly." Then she gestured towards my pockets once again. "Anything else?"

"Crumbs," I said. "You want them, too?"

Then for the first time that night, the hubris at the corner of her mouth faltered. Not at the boldness of my response, but at the realization that there was nothing, nothing satisfactory, she could punish me for. Although having food in the cell could be punishable if she decided so, I knew it wouldn't quench her thirst. The show was over. She wanted a gotcha-moment, and I gave her a piece of bread. Her black eyes glared, as she scribbled something down.

"Is this the calm before the storm, Miss Winters," she said, almost puncturing the paper as she wrote a period. "—or have you finally understood the importance of obedience?"

"The latter."

"I sincerely do hope so." She waved at Frank to signal him to go to the next cell. She began to follow him, took a step or two, but stopped. "But never forget you're being watched. Eyes are everywhere, even when you think you're perfectly safe."

And then, her thin, black figure disappeared in Shelly's cell. I heard Frank do the same in there, patting down the mattress and searching under it.

Grace cleared her throat on the other side of the hall. I looked at her. Her gaze didn't linger on me, as she glanced aside, with enough intention that made me followed it. There, three cell doors down from me, stood Mary with Pepper.

I thought that I was ready, until that moment, that I had the strength in me to remain unruffled by the sight of her. I thought my hatred was—though not the purest—strong. But she glowed. More than ever. I tried to remind myself of the things she'd done, tried to repeat Olga's name inside my head—because, there was no other way to bare this.

There was something in the air about her. I struggled to understand what was happening, or what I was seeing. It was not the Mary Eunice I knew. Her smile, her gait, her aura. While we'd been apart for a couple of days, something must have happened and changed her. Something had transformed her from a child to a woman. At least that was what I thought, and I couldn't bare it. So I tried to imagine the face of Olga I'd never seen, and hoped it'd make Mary ugly.

After hugging Pepper goodnight, she walked up the hall, closer to me. Our eyes met under the dim lights, and I swore her air grew brighter. Her smile grew, and she bit her lip to hide it. She clutched a clipboard to her chest, and ducked her head ever so slightly.

When she looked at me again, I mimicked her smile—but the stiffness of my lips kept it from being a big one. It was convincing anyways, I told myself. It relieved me to have the other people around us. If we'd been alone, there would be no explanation I could offer her.

* * *

 **Thanks everyone for reading and reviewing. Much love!**


	15. Chapter 15

Her second visit was only a few hours after the room search.

After the third routine run, I hid the powdered pills in my pocket, and waited for her. It had begun raining outside. The heavy raindrops hit the walls. The strong wind entered through the cracks of the window. It was probably one of the coldest nights this winter.

Then, Mary came at last. Although her steps still contained wariness, I thought I heard something else. New lightness. It could've been just the sound of rain.—It could've been something related to how she'd glowed earlier. She unlocked the door, and even in the dark, the glow was alive. It made me apprehensive. It made me fidget with my sleeves. All of a sudden, I felt like running and hiding in a hole. It was as if our roles had switched. My fingers itched to wrap themselves around something on my chest, like a crucifix. Instead, I found them encompassed in Mary's hand. She had taken my hand, and pulled me out of the cell. Her grip was not tight, but still had gentle persistence.—Had I let go of her hand, she would have found another way to feel my warmth. And this reassured me that her glow was not my hallucination.

But I was still aware of Grace's stare in the dark. As I let Mary guide me, I felt her presence, with her cheek pressed against the lattice. I imagined her dark eyes glaring at Mary's back, every thread of her waiting for Mary's demise. It was a silent rage, and as vitriolic as it was, I needed it. I needed it like a plant needed nutrients. Her hatred—because mine wasn't pure enough.

###

The entrance hall was even colder than the females ward. The air stabbed the inside of my throat every time I inhaled. I saw my breath, and Mary's. They floated in the blackness like ghosts, before disappearing into thin, crispy air.

She continued to hold my hand, even when we walked down the _Stairway to Heaven_. A bit awkward, more for her, I supposed. Her shoulder twisted in a way that might dislocate it. There was no way it could be comfortable, and it puzzled me why she didn't choose a simpler path of letting go of my hand. I wondered, then, what might happen if I did let go, if I let her go.

 _Why don't you just kick her downstairs?_ Grace said.

No, I'd never let such cruelty control me—though it might be mere intrepidity in someone's eyes. But the thought of it still haunted me, poking in the corner of my mind, daring me to just apply a little, just a little bit of pressure on her back.

And, as if my inner voice had spilled out, Mary looked at me over her shoulder. The absolute darkness hid the expression on her face. But I thought—at least in that very moment—she was smiling. Not her usual humble smile, but a smile that showed teeth, unrestrained, like a child's.

I don't know why she did it. She'd never done anything like this before, anything that might slow us down, because it'd contradict against our unspoken rules of quick and quiet. Tonight was different for her for whatever the reason, and she turned her head around while walking. One step, another one, she smiled, and the next moment, I felt her pulling my arm. The force only strengthened, from zero to ten in a matter of half a second, and I realized—she was losing her balance. My sense got suddenly sharp. The time felt slower. I didn't have the time to think, or do anything but to follow my instinct. I tightened my grip on her hand, and pulled her into me, with my other arm reaching to wrap her shoulder.

Her shoe slammed onto the wooden steps. The loud noise echoed, and we froze. Time stopped. My heart was threatening to jump out of my mouth. —And then there followed the sound of rain, hitting the glass of the skylight above us. We listened to it for a moment, together. It was only then that I became aware of how hard she held onto me, almost crashing my hand bones. The other hand, too, dug into my shoulder. Her bangs brushed against my cheek, her trembling breaths hitting the skin of my neck. And then, it made me aware of how hard _I_ held her in my arms, as if my life depended on it.

She loosened her grip. "Thank you—"

I hushed her, and gave her a light squeeze of the hand, encouraging her to go. We resumed our walk in silence. Though her grip on my hand had lost its deathly strength, it was still tight, as though holding onto me would keep her from tripping again. And I think, my grip was just as firm. As we passed the statue of the Virgin Mary, I looked towards the entrance door, and what was beyond that. Some street lights flickered in the rain, but the rest was sheer black. So dark, it looked like a black hole with its mouth wide open, waiting to consume anyone foolish enough to fall victim.

When we arrived at the chapel at last, we both sighed out in relief. The trip between here and my cell was always the most dangerous part of all, but the trepidation that shook my limbs in that moment didn't match the usual anxiety.

But then, she let out a quiet giggle, a sound so out of place.

"Dammit, sister, it's not funny," I said to her. "Someone could've heard it."

"You're right. I'm sorry." She took some moments to stifle her abrupt fit of giggling. She exhaled sharply once, but in vain. "I was just so scared, and— I really thought I'd fall— And the only thing I could do was to squeeze your hand." She could barely utter words without her giggles interrupting her.

I looked down at my hand, clad in darkness, still held in hers. It buzzed—the cold blood running in my veins. It prickled underneath the skin, and melted me, as though the light she gave off thawed my bones. I pulled away. I tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear, just to free myself of the touch. But she, despite the lack of vision, saw the awkwardness in my action anyway.

"Did I hurt you?" Her voice quivered. "Oh— I hurt you, didn't I?" She reached to hold my hand again, sandwiching it with both of hers this time. "I'm so sorry, Miss Winters, I never meant to—"

I wished she'd just let go. "You didn't. My hand is fine."

"But—"

"How are your ankles?" I asked. "Didn't you twist them?"

"No— I'm okay."

"Good," I said, and led her to our seats.

I sat down. I heard her clothes rustle, and the sound of strings untied. She took off her coat, which I'd failed to notice was on her, and threw it across our laps. She scooted closer to me, until our hips and shoulders touched. She shivered once, and let out another giggle.

"This way it won't be so cold," she said.

I forced a smile, aware of the dark, but still fearful she might see me. She might see me, although I couldn't. The outline of her face blurred, even more so with the sound of hard rain. Even her bangs, the blonde hair that usually absorbed light, swam in the sound. I felt her eyes on me, felt her warm breath close to my face, and heard the faintest sound of her chewing on her lip.

Then, she took my hand again. I didn't dare to ask what was compelling her to do so. She traced the bones of my hand with her thumb, in a similar manner a child examines something she's never seen.

"I think your fever is gone," she said.

For a brief moment, I had no clue what she was talking about. "Yeah," I said anyway. "My fever's gone."

"I went to see you yesterday. You were sleeping like a baby."

"Oh— I was?" I tried to mimic her quiet giggle. It only came out as a strangled snort.

"Yes. Although, I must admit, it felt quite odd to—" She paused. I could see her chewing her lip. "—to see you in such a state."

My face flushed momentarily, the heat spreading all over my body like wild fire. The air didn't feel cold. And, as the heat retreated, it became even colder than before. I didn't give her an answer, and she took it as unease.

She cleared her throat. "I left you medicine. Did you take it?"

"Yeah. I figured it was you. Thanks, they worked more than just fine, I guess."

"That's good," she said. "You have no idea how much I'm relieved to hear that. I—" Her grip tightened, as she took a shaky breath. "I missed you, Miss Winters."

And I felt her eyes on me again, heavier and thicker. The fabric of blackness around us almost fluttered with her heartbeat, waiting, fearful of my rejection. I longed for light.—A single candle would've done, or dying moonlight. I needed to see her face, to measure the depth of the crease between her brows, to look for the right answer in her eyes.

There was only darkness, but still I couldn't feel hidden enough.

"I missed you, too." I smiled.

"Really?"

"I did," I said. "This— Our conversation. I missed this. I missed us."

She breathed in. A long, quiet sigh came out. "I had a dream about you last night. We were sitting like this, but not in here. Somewhere outside." Her voice grew far, as she turned to look out the window. "Everything was so beautiful out there."

Her body trembled, and my body, too, did the same. She slipped her hands—with mine in them—under the coat blanket. I put my other hand in my pocket, where I felt the paper that had the powder in it.

"You are not angry that I can't take you outside, are you?" she asked.

I don't know where that question came from. Perhaps, she sensed the tenseness in my lack of words. Perhaps, she'd been feeling guilty for it the whole time, since the day one.

I said I wasn't.

"It's not safe out there. Especially at night," she said.

"I know."

Then she fell quiet, and sunk back into our familiar stillness. The stillness that used to offer me solace, used to heal part of me no word could. Now, it just reminded me of the time I was wasting, every second Kit and Grace spent waiting, waiting for me, in their concrete cells.

I looked about, straining my eyes to see the pulpit in the dark. I tried to remember what else was there around it.

Mary shivered. "It's cold," she said. "They said it might snow tonight if it gets colder."

She sat even closer to me then, as if we were a pair of small birds nestling up for warmth.

"Who did?"

"The newspaper," she said. "Snow or hail."

The rain, as it hit the windows, did not sound lighter or heavier. It was still mere water, falling from the sky.

"I didn't know you took a newspaper."

I wondered if they ever wrote articles about a missing female journalist.

She shrugged. "Mainly for Sister Jude and the Monsignor. I could read it if I wanted to, but— I don't understand much."

At the mention of Jude, a question popped up in my mind. It was the question I'd had earlier, and I was certain others thought the same. I asked her why Jude had brought her to the room search, why it had to be tonight, why it had to be different tonight. Room search always required five guards or so, but Jude had never done it with another sister.

"She wants me to learn how to do it," she said, "so I could do it when she cannot." Her voice was aglow with pride.

I imagined her cheeks growing pink. And although I couldn't see her eyes, they surely shined, too.

"You sound awfully excited," I said.

"Because I am. I wasn't just assisting her. She was teaching me, to be like her."

Like her. That was who she looked up to and wished to be. The monster that locked me up, and took the great love of my life away from me. It was difficult to believe Mary, a girl with such blind innocence, was Jude in the making. But her aspiration was clear. Like Jude she would be someday, and perhaps, in order to protect Briarcliff, she might put shackles on someone, too.

"She said that I've grown confident," she said, "that she trusts me now. Some people say I've changed, too. Like . . . I've become brighter."

"That's nice."

She hummed, caressing my hand. The ring on her finger had become warm against my skin.

"I think—" she said, but said no more. I heard her wet her lips.

"Well?" I said. "What is it?"

More silence followed. And at last, a soft breath escaped her lips, as though she wanted to laugh, but didn't have the energy to do so.

"Nothing," she said. When she spoke again, her voice sounded cheerier. "Oh, that reminds me."

One of her hands let go of mine for a moment. Her clothes rustled. She took something out of her pocket, and pressed it into my palm. I fiddled with it. It was a paper box no bigger than my knuckle, with a hole on top. The cold air contained a unique scent, something between sour and bitter. The scent of Marlboro.

"I noticed Sister Jude didn't give it back to you," Mary said.

She was right. But with everything going on, and with everything I was hoping to happen, cigarettes were at the bottom of my priorities. I couldn't have cared less if Jude took them. There'd be countless of them outside.

"And this—" She handed me another, a smaller box. My match box.

"You mean you stole them from her?" I asked.

"I didn't steal . . . I don't think that's the right word."

"But does she know?"

She swallowed. "No," she said. "But patients are allowed to have cigarettes anyways. I only followed the guidelines."

"Quite rebellious." I couldn't help but grin.

She giggled. "You made me so," she said.

The rain subsided, only pattering against the windows. And as the light night breeze carried the clouds away, moonlight found its way through the breaks, just enough for things—and us—to separate from the darkness. Then I saw her bangs, her eyelashes, her cheeks. She was looking at me, waiting. And it hit me like a flood.—It wasn't just because she'd changed that she glowed, but also because I'd changed, too. The way I saw her, as I had grown used to her. How I would've been proud of her, and how _almost_ I was proud of her.

I thought of Kit, of his scars and bruises, and of Grace, of her hometown and the tall tree with snow-covered branches. And I thought of Wendy.

My Wendy.

I put a cigarette between my lips, and fumbled with the match box. The little explosive sound of the match catching fire broke the silence, as the fire arose from the dark, like a will-o'-the-wisp.

"Please, don't smoke in here," Mary said, before the fire touched the cigarette.

"Oh, c'mon," I said. "You let me smoke in the bakery."

"I did try to stop you. You just didn't listen."

"No one comes here."

The match died between my fingers, but she still had her hand on me. The brightness lingered behind my eyelids, the darkness keener than before. I blinked it away.

"But we don't have an ashtray here," she said.

Her hand moved down my arm, slithering, until it reached my hand. She took the unlit cigarette out of my grip, and moved to my other hand. Her fingertips stroked mine there.

"Where's the match?" she said. "Did you throw it on the floor?"

I did. I looked down at my feet, where the lost burned stick would be.

And it was then that a plan formed itself before my eyes. It gathered the pieces of the moonlight and took shape, into a wine glass, into a key, and into a path. Into the moon.

"Miss Winters, I can't have you scattering trash all over . . . Miss Winters?"

"If I can't smoke," I said. "Can I drink alcohol instead?"

"I'm sorry?" Her voice grimaced. It only came from confusion, I decided, not from abhorrence.

"Like wine. Don't you have wine in here?" I studied the place around the pulpit, and saw the silhouette of a small cabinet in the corner. I pointed to it. "In there?"

 _Please, say yes_. I prayed to God I didn't believe in.

She choked on words, still perplexed. "We do—"


	16. Chapter 16

I almost let out a laugh of triumph.

"But, it's sacramental wine," she said. "It's not something you take as an alternative to—"

I stood up. The coat blanket slid off my lap as I did so, and the cold air stroked my unguarded legs. I made my way to the platform.

"I saw Spivey drunk today," I said. "I wish I knew how to make alcohol myself. Everything would be easier here, then. Hooch—that's what they call it, isn't it? Or is it just a prison term?"

The floor was barely visible in the moonlight, so I walked slowly. I had never gone beyond the third row, where our seats were. Although I knew there shouldn't be anything different, I felt colder. The cross gleamed in the mystical light, and shivers ran down my spine.

"Miss Winters," Mary said.

She stood up. But instead of following me, she walked to the other side of the platform. Her steps sounded warier than mine. She fumbled with the things there, heavy clank echoing against the walls.

I rested my hand on top of the cabinet. I felt my fingers covered with dust. It was shorter than I'd imagined, and I could sit on it if I jumped a little. I searched for a handle, and when I found it, pulled a little.—It wasn't locked. I crouched down to look inside, but it was impossible to see anything without a source of light. There could be a snake, or a beehive, and I wouldn't know it.

"Have you had any alcohol before?" I said.

The clanking noises stopped briefly. "I'm a Catholic nun, Miss Winters."

"So I'm aware, but before coming here?"

Then she came to me, putting something metallic on the cabinet.

"Can I borrow your matches?" she said.

I handed the box to her, and she lit a candle. Her eyes glimmered dark, as the bangs cast a shadow on her face.

"I was seventeen years old when I came here." She brushed her bangs out of her eyes. "That would've been very illegal to drink."

I studied the inside of the cabinet again. There were a vase of red wine and a golden goblet. I removed the cap of the vase, bringing my face closer to it. It smelled like stale nuts, the fatness in the smell traveling through my nasal cavity and sticking to the walls of my stomach. It'd certainly give you the worst type of stomach burn. Jesus Christ would be outraged.

I poured it into the goblet. "Aren't you curious, though," I said, "to know what it's like?"

"I know how it tastes," she said.

"No, not that," I said. "Getting drunk, I meant."

"The Bible explicitly says—"

"A sin. I know. But I call it liberation."

She raised her brows. "Liberation?"

"You might be able to do or say things that you couldn't do sober. Get a little bold, or more honest. You might discover the part of yourself you were never aware of."

Her eyes cast a glance at the goblet on the cabinet. She bit her lip.

I picked it up, and held it in front of her face. "Liberation," I said.

But it wasn't her time to take it, not yet. All I needed was a sign of willingness, a green light.

She raised her arm at last, and that was when I said,

"Did you hear that?" I turned to look at the door on the other end of the aisle.

"What?" she said, her hand on the crucifix. "What is it?"

I shook her head, and drew my brows together. "I don't know. I think I heard something." Then again, I looked at the door. "Did you lock the door?"

There was fear in her wide eyes. "I— Yes, I did." Her voice, too, trembled slightly.

"Could you check if there's no one out there, though?"

She nodded, and took a few timid steps, then stopped. "What if there was somebody?"

 _There won't be._

"What should I say," she said, "if they asked what I was doing?"

"Tell them you were praying. They won't ask another question."

As she headed for the door, I took the powder pill out of my pocket. I glanced at her every half second as I added it into the wine. The particles glided over the paper with a silky sound. And the psyched-up part of me flinched, and feared that the sound of rain couldn't drown it out. Mary opened the door very slowly, looking out there, for a person that never existed. I looked down at the goblet. The powder now lay at the bottom, while unrelated dust floated on the dark red surface. I swirled the wine, hoping this would dissolve at least some portion of it.

The door closed, and after a moment, there was a rusty clang of the deadlock being shut. Mary walked up the aisle, with her demeanor more placid now.

"What was it?" I asked.

"Just the wind, I think."

"Oh." I made a pretense of being surprised, and heaved a sigh of relief, then a laugh. "I seem to be a little on edge tonight. Perhaps I'm the one who needs a drink. But—" I raised the goblet again. "I could never have the heart to rob you of this pleasure."

But she only fidgeted, her fingers intertwined, as she twiddled her ring. Her bottom lip disappeared between her teeth.

"What?" I said, rather irritated. "Did you change your mind while walking back here?"

Her eyes caught my stare. The light of the candle flame flickered in them. She looked like a deer in the headlights. _Take it already!_ My fingers tightened around the goblet's stem. There was no more I needed to do.—There was only waiting, perhaps a little more pushing.

I sighed. "Still worried about the Bible thing?"

"I—" She played with her crucifix. "I don't know."

 _When do you ever?_ My head began to pound, as I fought the urge to just shove it down her throat.

"I think I'm afraid," she said.

"Why?"

She didn't answer.

"You smoked, though. This is no different from that, I promise."

"I've seen people get drunk," she said. "They yell and get into a fight. Smoking doesn't do that to you."

"Alcohol doesn't do that, either, if you drink in moderation."

For a fleeting moment, I wondered if I'd have to drink it to encourage her, the way I'd done with smoking.

Her eyes travelled between me and the goblet. "Okay," she said at last.

She held the bowl of the goblet with both hands, staring down. But she continued to stand there all the same. Her lips remained closed, the wine did not decrease, her hands continued to warm it up. She pulled her brows together, as though an abyss was in the goblet. And I almost regretted having saved her from falling down the stairs. It might have been messy, but it certainly would've been quicker.

 _Why_ , I thought, _is she getting so hesitant all of a sudden?_

I kept staring at her, as she kept staring at the wine. Then, it occurred to me, that it wasn't the abyss she was looking at, but the surface of it. The floating dust. I felt a knot in the stomach, and felt my breathing quicken. And, she looked up, as if she could hear my pounding heart. There was _those sparks_. I saw them, among the shadows of misgiving, qualm, vulnerability, and timorousness. It gathered the remnants of my conscience to the center of my heart, and pierced a hole right into it.

"How do you get," she said, "when you get drunk?"

I didn't know if it was her another out-of-the-blue question, or something else loaded with hidden meanings.

"I don't know, I become a little . . . flirtatious."

She blinked a couple of times, making a face I couldn't decipher.

"Only with the right people," I said, as I felt nervous. "I keep my dignity intact even when I'm drunk."

"The right people . . ." Her eyes dropped to the wine. "Like, Miss Wendy?" she asked.

 _Drink your goddamn wine already!_

"Yeah. Right. She's my special one." I didn't think I could be more impatient. But she couldn't see it.

Her lips curled in a tiny smile. "I like listening to you talk about her," she said. "That's when you look happiest."

I wished she hadn't said that. I wished she hadn't had to remind me of her, of what made me _happy_ , when the freedom was almost within reach.

"You will—" She looked at me through her eyelashes. "You will look after me, won't you? Make sure I don't get too drunk?"

I don't know how strong she thought the wine was. A glass of wine could only do so much. It might make her dizzy, especially when her body wasn't used to alcohol. But it could not knock her out.—Well, if it _was_ regular wine.

"Of course, I will."

She sat in the front row. She took a slow breath, and— _at last!_ —her lips touched the rim of the goblet. Suddenly time seemed to slow down.—It _did_ slow down, as the world had shrunken away with the two of us in it. I watched her tilt her head backwards, watched her lips part, watched her white throat move, just once. Perhaps, I heard the wine go down, and I, too, swallowed. I watched her, as if any movement could not be missed. And I felt, between the drumming sounds of anticipation, some sort of amazement. The realization that, in the whole world, I was the only one who had ever seen such a sight. She stuck her tongue out and licked her upper lip, with a slight grimace between her brows. The candle flame swirled in her eyes, as they locked with mine.

"It's sour," she said.

"Well, you're not drinking Cola."

Puzzlement crept across her face. "I don't drink sweet beverages. Sister Jude says they are products of secularism—"

"Take another sip."

And it was easy from there, like going down the slide. After all, that's what people mean by slippery slope.—The toughest part had passed. Still, watching her finish one glass of wine was like watching a snail walk five feet. However easy it seemed to me, it was quite a challenge for them.

"Do you want some?" she said at one point, holding it out to me.

I shook my head. "No. You drink."

"But— Didn't you say you wanted to drink it?"

"I changed my mind," I said. "One of us has to be sober to look out for us both, anyway."

Her lips curled in a lopsided smile. "It'll be your turn next time," she said. "Next time." Then she brought it to her mouth.

There wouldn't be a next time.

I looked at the sky. It was still raining, the gloomy sound clad in darkness. It could be around three thirty, or it could be near the wake-up time. Had the sky been clear, the position of the moon could've given me a general idea.

"Where's your watch?" I asked her.

"Pardon?" She blinked once, slowly, trying to fight the heaviness of her eyelids.

It was hard to tell if she had a truly low tolerance, or if the pills were beginning to take effect. Either way, the goal was near.

"Your pocket watch. Give it to me."

"Oh." She took it out, pressed it into my hand, and then tilted her head. "Why do you need it?"

The dial was barely visible. Even with it right in front of my face, I had to strain my eyes. It was almost five o'clock. I couldn't believe I'd wasted so much time already!

"Told you, I need to look out for us," I said.

"You did."

"I'll wake you up if you fall asleep."

"But, I'm not sleepy . . . I don't want to sleep." Her hand rose to rub her eyes, then moved lower, her palm flush against her cheek. "My cheeks are warm," she said, as if it was the most peculiar thing.

"That's what alcohol does," I said.

I looked at the watch, following the second arm as it ticked. Such a slow pace. In that moment, one minute equated to an eternity. Each breath Mary took was worth a year of my life. It felt like I was going to perish there.

She stifled a yawn, and her eyes glistened with drowsy tears.

"You can sleep," I said.

She shook her head, with her eyes now completely closed. "I don't want to fall asleep. I want to . . ." The end of the sentence was a slow breath. "I want to talk to you . . ." Then she was nodding off, as her body swayed back and forth. Her head rested on my shoulder eventually, the same way it always did. "I've missed you. I don't want to go to sleep."

But she did. Her body grew heavy at once, as though someone cut off all the strings on her limbs. Her breathing became even, albeit a little louder than usual, a little quicker than usual. I thought I could hear her rapid heartbeat near my ear.—But it was too loud to be hers.

"Sister?" I said.

There came no answer.

"Mary Eunice?"

Only soft snoring answered.

I turned my head to her side, until her bangs tickled my cheek. I whispered her name again. Although utter silence responded, it couldn't reassure me, not yet. It was still the yellow light. I touched her cheek—it was indeed warm, and soft—and touched her shoulder. I shook her with faint pushes at first, and then with a firmer force.

She continued to sleep.

This was it. The time had come. A jolt of adrenaline sent shivers down my spine, and I found it difficult to breathe. Only for a second or two. I dashed around the chapel like a real lunatic, then, to collect the dwindling candle from the cabinet. Had I known where they kept more candles, I'd taken them. I would have taken anything, if it could increase the chance of our survival.

But when I found Mary's coat in our designated seats, I felt a sudden pang of guilt. I stood there, staring at it, trying to decide whether to take it with me, or to cover Mary's body with it. It would be freezing without it.—More freezing outside than inside. I grabbed it and put it on.

I never looked back then, or even thought about doing so. All that was on my mind, as I picked the keys off the wall near the door, was how fast we could run in the rain.


	17. Chapter 17

I should have worked out in all the free time I'd had. My legs were weak, already shaking and aching, as I ran up the stairs. I felt my knees wobble. The soles of my feet burned, rubbing against the rough insoles of my shoes. Though I couldn't be fast enough, the velocity was enough to blow out the candle. It left me in a thicker darkness, disoriented for a split second, as I went back to the females' ward for Grace.

In front of her cell, I struck a match and lit the candle again. Grace patiently waited, with her fingers around the iron bars, while I struggled to find the right key. They all looked the same to me. The first three didn't even go in the lock hole. The fourth key—I thought it was the one—did fit in the hole, but did not turn. I grew frustrated. I feared that the sound of keys might disturb someone's sleep.

Then, as I tried another key, there came a sound from one of the cells. There came a creaking of bedsprings, followed by restless footsteps. My teeth began to clatter. It might have been the adrenaline, or the sheer terror of getting caught red-handed. My throat got dry, so much my tongue stuck to the back of it. The sound stopped. I stopped. I felt Grace breathing in my face, tightening her grip around the iron bars. Her eyes glared with urgency, as though she feared I might flee.—But I found that my body was paralyzed, frozen to the core. Sweat covered my palms, and I thought the keys might slip out of my grip.

And it was when soft humming broke the silence. A familiar, joyful tone. As it snapped me out of my paralysis, I looked at Grace. It was a reprieve, though most likely short-lived.

"Stop singing, Pepper," Grace said. Her hushed voice traveled through the frigid corridor.

Pepper squealed once, and the bed creaked again. No more sound came, no more disruption. I tried the fifth key with steady hands. And this time, it turned. With a victorious click at the end, we heaved a sigh of relief for the second time. But we soon realized that relief was not an appropriate feeling to have, when there was another man to release. The cell door squeaked, as Grace stepped out. She then tried to close it, but I stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. They would find out about this in the morning. We couldn't waste another second bothering about the rusty door.

We ran through the hall, only white breath coming out of our mouths. Once we stopped at the door of the males' ward, I relit the candle.—This was going to have to be a routine, whether we liked it or not. I handed it to Grace, then fumbled for the key. The key that worked for Grace's cell didn't work. My hands shook again, not from fear this time, but from the searing coldness the metal contained. After the fire had warmed the tips of my fingers, it felt even colder. At the third attempt, it unlocked. Grace reached for the knob. I grabbed her by the wrist before she could.

"Do you know exactly where his cell is?" I said. Until this moment, it hadn't even occurred to me to ask him.

Grace seemed yo think for a moment. "The fifth one on the right, I think."

"Good. You go, then." I held out the keys to her, with two keys between my fingers. "The one on your right is the one that opened your cell. The other one is the one that worked for this door."

"You think one of them is gonna open his door, too?" she said, as she took them.

"I'm crossing my fingers. Give me that—" I gestured towards the candle in her hand.

She cast a confused, reluctant eye at it. "No, I need this," she said, taking a step back. "How am I supposed to see without a light? It's pitch-dark."

"We can't have anyone seeing what we're doing." I almost yanked it out of her grip. "I'll go inside with you and stand at the door, so it won't be completely dark."

If we'd had the luxury of time, she would have opted for more argument. But there wasn't, and God bless she had the rationality of a regular person. She yielded, and we went in. The ward had a vinegar-like odor, a smell unique to men's body, embedded in every crack of the concrete walls. Nausea overwhelmed me, before I got used to it, like I'd gotten used to the life here. So many men were snoring. It gave me a fleeting sensation of being inside a cage full of wild animals. If we made any slightest noise, the whole cage would wake to its full bestiality.

The white hand of Grace floated in the dark, counting the doors, as she trotted deeper. She stopped at the fifth door on her right. I waited, at a distance, for her to unlock it.—But instead, her head turned to me. It was too dim and too far to see her face, but something was very wrong, my instinct told me. There was nothing I could do, however. I could only watch her, as she stood on tiptoe, pushing her face into the iron bars, searching.—Kit wasn't there.

The realization hit me quite hard in the stomach, and I almost let out a groan. There didn't seem to be so many possible scenarios. He simplest might have fallen asleep. Perhaps they had moved him to the solitary confinement. Or worse, it might not his cell. None of them looked better than another.

Grace made a shushing sound, lightly tapped on the door, clicked her tongue. She must have tried everything she could, yet, nothing. No desired reaction, at least, from Kit. Instead, those little noises woke up someone else.

"Visiting your man?" the voice said.

Although I couldn't recognize his voice at first, his vulgar laughter made it ovbious. It was Spivey, a beast, the most vicious one of all. How excruciating it was! Nothing seemed to be going according to the plan, as if Briarcliff was aware of it.

Grace tapped on the door again, with much desperation.

Spivey snickered. "Come to me, little pussy. I can fuck you better than your man."

I stood in a trance, as he continued to produce obnoxious noises. I wanted to walk to Grace and drag her out of there. I wanted to shout, Forget Kit! He is not here! We could not waste any more time, when Jude might be getting out of her bed right at the very moment. But, of course, Grace would never choose such a path of betrayal. She stayed put, repeating her actions over and over again. My head span. The candlestand grew heavier in my grip all of a sudden. I took a deep breath, but all I could taste was iron. Blood. I thought I was going to pass out, just like Mary Eunice in the chapel. She must be shivering in her sleep.

Then, as the thought of her almost came haunting me, I heard Grace gasp. The keys jingled in her hands. There followed a metallic click, and the creaking of the door. The figure of a man walked out of the cell, taking her hand. In the dim light, their shadows got closer to me, as they ran down the corridor.

Spivey saw them, and began to yell, demanding to be let out. But I couldn't hear all of his words. The door closed behind us.

Kit's eyes were wide, almost in a state of panic. "So sorry, I tried to stay awake. I don't know when I—"

"It doesn't matter," I said. "We don't have much time left."

We descended the stairs, almost skipping every other step. The rain seemed to have subsided by then, and odd serenity surrounded us in the vast hall. Our footsteps echoed, like the rumbling of thunder. Even our breathing sounded like the howling wind. It was only a matter of time before it caught someone's attention.—Time. Everything depended on it now.

###

Finding the tunnel was, as it turned out, the easiest task of all. I thought luck was finally on our side, after all that'd happened so far.

The structure of the basement was quite similar to the rest of the asylum—though, everything else was distinctively different. It was quieter, colder, darker, gloomier, wetter, and more. The darkness felt thick enough to absorb any noises, but I still thought I could hear the sound of water in the distance. And the ghost of noise alone seemed enough to extinguish the candle flame, despite the lack of wind. I held the candle higher, so I could have a better view.

"I wouldn't be surprised if there were dead bodies," Grace said behind me.

"Where's the tunnel?" Kit said.

I looked about, and saw that none of the doors were even closed.

"That way," I said, gesturing towards the wing on my left. "At the end of the corridor."

As we got closer to the end, the flame reflected against the whiteness of the things there. I saw a pile of dirty pillows in a rusty wheelbarrow. Behind that was a mattress, standing vertically between the wheelbarrow and the wall. Kit moved them to a corner. And there, we found a door. It did not have a lock or a window, like most of the doors in Briarcliff did. We all looked at each other, as though we stood before a mythical being. Once it opened, however, we didn't even bother to close it.

The passage was atrocious in every aspect. As I went in the tunnel, my shoes became soaked right away. The rain had come flowing through the entrance, through the ceiling windows. There were puddles everywhere. With each step, as we ran, the dampness added extra weight to my feet. I stepped in a deep puddle, and the muddy water splashed on my cheek. But I did not slow down. I only went faster, like a bullet. Then I saw the end of the tunnel, the air growing crispier, sharper.

And I breathed in, when we finally stood outside Briarcliff, out in the woods. The soft breeze caressed my soaked cheeks, a sensation I hadn't felt in months. We looked up at the sky. One side of the sky—that must be the east—was getting brighter. It was no longer raining.

"It's snowing," Grace said. She wore a tiny smile.

I looked up again. A snowflake landed on my eyelashes, and some more on my face. It melted on my flushed skin, seeping through it. And though I could see my breath more clearly now, I felt warmer inside.—Mary was right. The world was white, and so, so beautiful.

"Alright, let's go," Kit said. He brushed snow off his hair. "Lana, where's your car?"

I looked around. "It's somewhere near the gate."

"We need more than just somewhere," he said. "We don't have the time to search for it."

"I know. I'm just trying to— I remember walking through the woods." I pointed to the dark woods. "That's where I met Mary Eunice."

"That way?" Grace began to walk, but Kit grabbed her by the arm.

"No, we can't go in there," he said. "It's still dark in there. It's dangerous."

"It was dark when I walked there, too." I said. "And what could be more dangerous than getting caught, huh?"

He looked at me, at Grace, then looked to the trees over my shoulder. "No."

"Yes."

"No." He shook his head.

"Guys, we shouldn't be arguing right now," Grace said.

I put my hand on his shoulder. "Kit, please stop being like this. Let's go."

"Being like what?" He shook my hand off. "I'm just being rational. If we go in there—" He pointed to the woods. "—we might get lost. What are we going to do, then? We don't have food, or proper clothes to stay warm in this weather— Wait." He frowned again, looking at me, at the jacket. "Where'd you get—"

But he did not get to finish it, because there were voices, and a long whistle, from inside the building. More shouting followed. On the solid ground, I thought the whole building churn. Briarcliff was waking up, snapping out of its remaining drowsiness of the early morning. We looked at one another, as fear paralyzed our bodies for a second. Then, the voices came sounding clearer.—They were outside the main entrance now, on the opposite side of us. I heard them shouting something about getting a car. Their voices echoed in the clear field, and early birds flew away from the trees.

"Go, go, go!" I gestured towards the woods.

It was only a matter of time before they came to this side of the building. They weren't that stupid. But, it was still possible to lose them, if we could hide in the woods. We ran. The sharp branches scratched our bare skin. Our feet got caught in the muddy ground more than once. The shadows of trees blocked our view, hiding the path from us. We ignored all of it. We focused all of our energies on the movement of our legs, to move them faster and faster. Kit was running ahead of me. He never looked back to see if we were following, as I never did so for Grace, who was behind me.

Abruptly, Kit stopped.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"I hear something." He looked around, still panting heavily.

Grace caught up. "Why did we stop?" she said, as she wiped her nose with the back of her hand.

"There's something in the bush," he said.

We were standing in a small expanse of field, with a path that probably led back to Briarcliff. On the ground lay a tin bucket, deformed and weathered, and quite nearby, there were bones scattered about. Some of them were yellowish brown, as if they had been out here for a while. Others looked fresher.

"What the fuck is this place . . ." Grace said, and Kit shushed her.

I saw one set of bones with some meat still stuck here and there. It was a hand. Although the thumb bone had been plucked off, I could see that it was—how I wished my eyes were fooling me!—a human hand. Then, I heard something growl near us.

"Wolves." I shivered.

"Wolves?" Grace said. "There are no wolves around here."

"Who are you to tell? Haven't you heard them howl at night?" Because of the adrenaline, my voice came out harsher, more belligerent than I'd meant.

She would have bitten back under any other circumstances. But not when we were surrounded by a pack of hungry carnivores, in the middle of an asylum-break.

"Knock it off," Kit said. "Lana, light the candle."

"I— What?"

"We need fire." He waved his hand at the candle in my hand. "We might be able to scare them off. Quick— Quick!"

I almost flung the candle in Grace's arms, not even making sure if she caught it. I rummaged in my pockets for the matchbox. My hands shook, and it made the simple action of striking a match quite a challenge. It was the fright, the idea of being eaten alive. But it was also the stinging cold weather.—I hadn't realized until now, how much it stabbed my skin and froze my blood.

As I put too much pressure on the head of the match, it broke into two. An expletive escaped my mouth.

"Another one," Grace said, with the candle in both of her hands.

I tried the second one, with more gentility. But it turned out to be too gentle. It merely produced barren, sandy sounds, as it glided across the side of the box, over and over again. Eventually, the fruitless friction made the head of the match bald, devoid of the chemicals. I discarded it and picked another one out of the box. Now my palms began to sweat a river.

"Hurry!" Kit said.

"I fucking know!"

But by then, snowflakes had landed on my hands, the box, the matches, the candle wick.—The friction sounds became heavier and damper.

Grace began to quiver next to me, cursing words melted in her white breaths. "Kit, the matches are wet!" she said.

I still kept trying. Then, the bush behind Kit rustled, and a dark silhouette appeared. It growled, sort of wobbled, and stopped there. Everything fell quiet for a moment.

I thought, What a weird looking wolf.

The animal straightened up slightly, and got on its rear legs. Kit took a step back. I felt Grace scoot closer, grasping at my coat. My legs refused to move, as if Medusa had turned them into stone. The wind blew into my face. I smelled something foul in it, something sour and reeking.—It smelled like the males' ward, but way worse. And then, it took a step closer to us, stepping into the weak sunlight.

We all screamed at what we saw. And the reaction seemed to have provoked the creature. It lunged forward, as it bared its teeth, saliva leaking one corner of its mouth.

I can't recall—and I suppose it's for the best—who was the first one to move, but when I realized, we were running back the way we'd come. No looking back. Between our own screams and hard breathing, I heard the creature behind us.

And as the sun reflected against the whiteness of the world, I saw the red-brick walls. They grew closer, taller. Briarcliff sat there, like a tomb stone. As if it knew we'd come back.

* * *

End of Part One


	18. Chapter 18

**A/N:** not to be a tease but part two is going to be **_intense_**

* * *

 **Part Two**

They threw me in solitary confinement.

After coming back in through the tunnel, we did not have many options. Our clothes were soaked, our skin pale. The creature had chased us, and still was growling on the other side of the door. The shouts and screams of people shook the floors upstairs , in search of us. There was no way out, that was the consensus. At least, if we chose the human capture, we would get to keep our lives, keep out limbs attached to the body.

Jude was beyond furious, as we stood in her office. She rested her hands on the desk, palms flush against it. The fingers stretched, like two white, hairless spiders, and curled up, as though she was trying to catch hold of the surface. Her lips were tight, a straight line that twitched every so often, blocking any words. She sighed through her clenched teeth. She shook her head, and sighed again. There were marks of bedsheets on her left cheek. As her face rose, my inside shivered at her bloodshot eyes.

She parted her lips at last. "Well—" she said. And that was it.

None of us dared to move, not even clatter our teeth, or wrap our arms around the body. I momentarily looked down, and saw that puddles were beginning to form at our feet. These would grow the mountain of her fury, raising the temperature of her blood by several degrees.

She walked to the cabinet of canes, with long, sharp steps that foreshadowed the inevitable echoes of caning. She wasted no second, and grabbed the one on the far right. The wooden rod. The thickest one.

"I'll give you a chance." Her tone sounded like over-sugared cake. "Here's how it's going to be. Each of you gets thirty blows. Fair and square. But I will ask three questions before that. They are not mandatory, I will not force you to answer. You decide." She rested the rod on her desk. "But I advise you that you be careful with your decision, because each answer—right answer—can reduce your blows by ten. If you answer all of the three, you won't get any lashes at all— Well, I hope you are familiar with simple arithmetic."

As sweet as her voice might be, her venom was ever present. And despite the deep crease between her brows, there was a small hint of a smile. Arrogant, and awfully pleased. She just itched to punish us.

"One," she said. "Who planned it?"

None of us said anything.

She let out a soft puff of air, as though it was all within expectation, and picked the rod up. "Two." Then her face became like a rock. " _What_ did you do to Mary Eunice?"

My heart skipped a beat at her name. I shivered. I suddenly became aware of every droplets of water on my skin, of every hair on my body standing, of the air in my lungs. I took a shallow breath.—The coat smelled of _her_ , a mixture of bread and laundry detergent. There was a long blonde hair on the bottom edge of it, but it was too tiny a thing, too far from Jude's sleepy—and old—eyes to see.

Jude reiterated and articulated her question, declaring Mary to be in comatose condition. I don't know how it should've made me feel. I still don't know the right answer.—I just felt relieved that my biggest concern had not become a reality, that she was sleeping, not dead.

At the end of the silence, Jude slithered her hands along the rod, holding it by the handle, ready to flick it down.

"Three," she said. Her soft façade returned on her lips. "Why did you come back?"

I glanced at Kit and Grace, and they at me. The fleeting shadows of uncertainty across their faces were reflective of mine.

It was clever of her, I had to give her credit. This question was different, easier to answer than the first two. No telling on anyone, no revealing our tricks. It seemed harmless to answer, which was exactly why it posed a great danger.—If any of us made a mistake of answering it, there'd be an unbalance of punishment among us. Once that happened, the other two people would also be tempted to get the same treatment. It was a game of doubt and guilt. Though a dirty trick, it was quite a clever move.

Yet, in the end, we all received an equal number of blows.

.

I never expected Jude to think the caning would suffice. It was obvious, as she wiped her rod with a cloth, that the amount of blood on it and our cold sweat failed to satisfy her. Gut-deep was her indignation, and our defiance only served to fuel it. I thought she might give us sessions of electroshock therapy and hydrotherapy back to back, and perhaps more caning. But she ordered none of the things.

"Get those two back to their rooms." She pointed the rod at Kit and Grace. "Make sure that the restraints are _tight_. And her—" The tip of the rod almost dug into my head. "—to the basement," she said.

I had no strength left to protest. A guard and a nurse took me by the arm, and dragged me through the halls. My ass burned, even more so when the fabric of my underwear stroked the fresh wounds. Breathing became a labor. The ability to walk became a luxury. I cried out every time the guard's police baton pressed into my leg. They paid no attention to my pain, though. I could feel blood trickling down my butt cheek, down the back of my thigh, as sweat did the same down my temples.

"Walk slowly. It hurts." My voice sounded so distant.

This plea went unanswered. They shoved me into a cell, with such a careless force that I lost my footing. I collapsed onto the mattress on the floor.

"Get up," the guard said.

Without waiting for my reaction, he grabbed my arm and pulled me up. His hands found the row of buttons of my coat, then, undoing the top one. I had been somewhat obedient, even tranquil until this moment, but this got me into a fit of panic. I was inside a dark cell, with two fully grown men, isolated from everyone else. They could do anything to me if they wished. I slapped those hands and struggled.

He pushed me against the wall. "Stop that!" he said.

I continued to scream, swinging my arms as hard as I could. The other man came joining in, and I gasped, when he pressed his elbow into my stomach. I begged and begged, as they ripped the coat off my body. But they, in spite of my fears, only placed me in a straitjacket, which would have kept me calmer had I seen it. As they let me go, the nurse punched me in the stomach again. This time, I threw up. I lost my balance then, and fell onto the mattress, on my ruptured ass. It almost knocked me unconscious. I choked on my vomit. It felt like someone just cut open my abdomen and directly put their hand in me, stirring up my organs. I almost did not recognize my own scream, as it filled the cell, echoing against the walls inside my head.

I think I did pass out a bit, or at least floated out of my body. When I came to my senses, I was curling up in a ball, with my forehead pressed down on the mattress. My ass still burned. Every time my heart pumped blood, the flesh there throbbed. The vomit—mostly just gastric juices, with bits of last night's supper—had dried in the corner of my mouth. I rubbed my face against the mattress to wipe it. Then, as my eyes grew used to the dark, I saw a black button just a few inches away.—The men had torn it off my coat. The main body lay on the other side of the cell.

And it stayed there for days, serving as a fantastic bed for bugs and rats. I watched them make a home under it, watched them leave bean-like poop on it. They could have it. It served no purpose, as my upper body was clad in the straitjacket.

"Where are Kit and Grace?" I asked a guard.

"They are upstairs with everybody," he said, and walked away.

Next time they came to slide a meal tray under the door, I asked the person, "Why am I in here? Why am I getting harsher punishment than the other two?"

He said because I was the mastermind of the whole scheme, said I was the one who had done Mary Eunice harm.—The second part was true, but I had no clue how they assumed the first. It was a false accusation, a product of Jude's delusion.

I lost what was left of my sense of time there. Without any window or lightbulb, it was perpetually as dark as night. They fed me three times a day. A small piece of bread, exactly four peas, and—I think—dilute mashed potatoes. Although I refused to touch such atrocious food, it did help me keep track of time. But sometimes, I noticed, they forgot that I existed and neglected to feed me. I spent most of the time sleeping to ignore hunger, and every time I woke up, I grew more disoriented, more lost in the timeless maze.

If it wasn't for the creature in the woods, I wouldn't have been here. Any place was better. But the darkness got me trapped, and there was no way to unsee what I'd seen. The eyes that saw us as nothing but food. The red, bloated skin that seemed like chemical burns. The way it growled.—These were the creatures I'd heard at night. The sound still rang in my ears. And the worst of all, the thing that gave me nightmares, was the clothes it had on. It was torn and dirty. It was blue, like my own hospital gown. There is nothing more direful than that, to see an uncanny resemblance between the monster and yourself. And because of this, I feared that the darkness would solidify, turn into the creature, make me one of them.

Then I became ill. When I wasn't asleep, I was groaning. When I wasn't groaning, I was throwing up. My entire body felt like it was being boiled and frozen at the same time. Every beat of my heart consumed my life. Every bone and nerve ached, if that was possible. I believe I ground my teeth enough to get them cracked.

 _I wish I was a rat,_ my delirious mind thought, _their teeth never stop growing._

Nothing seemed to concern the guards even then. Sometimes a streak of light fell upon my face when they peeked through the slot, but it was never to see if I was still alive.

"Please," I said. I could feel myself shrinking like a balloon. "I don't feel great."

"That's good," the man said.

"No, please. I need to see a doctor."

As I said it, another wave of nausea hit me. I crawled to the filth bucket, just quick enough for half of my puke to go in there. It splashed on my face, adding another layer of filth on top of sweat and tears and saliva. I heard myself beg the man again.

"Ain't no hospital's got room for a dyke."

It was Sánchez, the man least suitable to look after me. His voice sounded jolly, while his unadulterated malice remained intact, if not more condense.

"You know I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry that I can't wrap my fingers around your neck. I might if it were cleaner inside. But I'm germophobic."

I began to sob even harder. The sensitive walls of my throat inflamed. Every time I breathed in, it ended with a violent cough. As Sánchez shut the slot, it felt like my consciousness was walking away, too. I thought this would be my end there. Really. Either from starvation or this deteriorating illness, whichever got to me first.

On my deathbed, I thought of Wendy. She used to say her life was a two-part novel, whose first part ended when I smiled at her in the bar. "It's always Before You and After You. The second part is going to be much, much longer than the first," she said, as she doodled on my forearm and kissed it. Now, I wondered if she'd keep writing Part Two, or start Part Three: After _the After_.—I hoped she'd start writing a new book, with more exciting plots, that could have a happy ending.

I thought of the people that I used to call my parents. They would probably never learn of my demise. Nothing would change even if they did. Their perfect straight girl had long been under the tombstone in their hearts.

Then, for the first time in forever, I allowed myself to think of Mary Eunice. Her moonlit profile. The way she held onto me on thundering nights. The smile she gave me at the stairs, and the fit of laughter she bursted into.—And everything that she was.

"Do you regret it?" a woman said.

I craned my neck a little, and found her standing in the corner of the cell. In spite of the darkness, I could clearly see her pale skin, blood-red lips, abyss-black hair and dress. From behind a sheer black veil, her gentle eyes looked down at me.

It never occurred to me to question her presence.

"No, I don't," I said.

"But you took advantage of her innocence and trust, like everyone else in her life." Her voice, despite the words, was velvet. "You swore you'd never do that to her, didn't you?"

"But she was no angel. She killed Olga."

"Do you hate her for it, then?"

I squeezed my eyes shut, and curled up. "I can't forgive her."

"Do you hate her?"

I rubbed my cheek against the mattress, as I breathed in through my nose. "No," I said. For a split second, the pain inside my chest made me forget about everything else hurting my body. "I just wonder how she felt when she woke up. How she felt when she realized what I've done to her."

"How did you feel when Wendy betrayed you?"

"Heartbroken, disappointed. I got mad, and sad again."

The lips moved on the white canvas of her face, as she gave me a delicate smile. "There you have it," she said.

The redness of her lips gave off an odd attractiveness, and if I could, I would've reached to touch them, or perhaps, kissed them.

"But I don't want to feel sympathy for her," I said. "I owe it to Olga not to."

"Yet, you do."

The way she said it was so gentle, so careful. And it made me ashamed. Even to myself, to this creation of my imagination and guilt, I couldn't admit it. That my heart ached for Mary.—I'd rather burn in fire and brimstone than allow the truth to give me a papercut.

If it was my cross to bear, then I had to own it.

Then, as the woman melted into the darkness, there was light. I thought it was finally the time. I closed my eyes, and felt the warmth of death, as it embraced me.


	19. Chapter 19

First, I realized the air did not smell like sewage, but something chemical. Second, I realized it was bright. I could feel it stabbing my eyeballs, even from behind my eyelids. Third, my arms were no longer in a straitjacket, no longer crossed across my chest. Under my touch, I felt soft bedsheets covering the coarse fabric of the mattress. And as I became more conscious, I realized I was lying on my back, on my ruptured ass.

I turned to my side, and saw an IV stand right next to the bed. The sunlight shimmered in the unknown fluids inside the IV bag. I squinted and followed the length of the tubing, starting from up there, disappearing into my arm. A few tiny puncture wounds graced my skin there.—Someone was quite skilled at finding the vein. I pulled the needle out.

There was a coat, draped over the footboard of the bed. It was clean and ironed. No resemblance to the coat that had lain in rats' poo in the solitary confinement. But it was the same coat.—I knew it, because the top button had been sewn back on, in such a clumsy manner. It wasn't even the same button as the rest of them. It was a little smaller, thinner, and a lighter shade of black.

I drew a timid line across the fabric. It smelled of _her_. I didn't dare pick it up. But instead, I imagined another coat hanging in the closet of her, missing one of its buttons.

Then, I found a watch, her watch, in a pocket of the coat. The glass cover remained intact, with no scratch or crack, as the second hand ticked. It read past three.

It was then I noticed other presences in the room. The muttering behind the partitions stopped. After a moment, I heard more whispers, and they stopped again. One set of footsteps made a hurried exit, then, as the other came closer to where I lay.

Sister Rose made herself seen. "You're awake now, Miss Winters," she said. "Do you know where you are?" When she stood by the IV set, the sunlight reflected against her thick glasses.

I narrowed my eyes. "In the infirmary."

"Good."

Her gaze found the removed needle. She threw a disapproving look at me. She inserted it back under my skin (Don't they need a new needle?), taping the tubing down, until white pieces of tape covered half of my forearm.

"Try not to move. You are heavily sedated," she said.

"How long have I been out?"

She inspected the IV set, with a solemn expression on her face, as though she knew what she was doing. "Two days and a half," she said. "Don't you remember anything?"

Nothing much came to mind. Most of the things were hidden behind a blur, in a jumble of dreams and delusions and reality. But I think, in the blank place between life and death, I heard Mary Eunice sobbing, and also Jude's volcanic shouts.

"No, I don't," I said.

Then she told me, in the flatest tone, that I had an infection from the caning wounds. A quite wicked one. And I was almost a goner, when Mary Eunice and Sánchez brought me in. That day, as brief as the moment was, the whole house turned into chaos. Everyone believed I couldn't—and shouldn't—be saved, except for Mary. She begged Arden for help, desperate, to such an extent that she threatened to die with me.

"What a horrifying idea!" Rose said, as her chubby fingers pulled the blankets over my shoulders. "But to see her do it all while weeping like a child was more disturbing than anything else."

I didn't say anything.

"You should be grateful," she said in the end.

I couldn't decide whether she meant the Lord's mercy, or Mary's. "Would I be put back in solitary when I get better?"

"It's Sister Jude's decision to make."

The answer was yes, then.

.

My awakening turned out to be a matter of great importance. They reacted to it as quickly as journalists spring at scandal. I imagined the news spread like wildfire, to every corner of Briarcliff, as people began to pay visits in no time. Not to express their sympathies, however, but to condemn me for the breath I still drew.

Sánchez beat everyone when it came to this. Not even a deaf person could have ignored his arrival, as he stomped his army-boot-clad feet, shaking the ground. There was no more eloquent way.—My peace existed to be destroyed, and it was his pleasure to ruin it.

My very first instinct was to get up, and stand by the bed. The last thing I wanted was to confront him, but now that it was inescapable, the second last thing I wanted was for him to regard my debilitated state. But I found that my physical vitality failed to emulate my spirit. It took all of my energies to just sit up, keep my head as high as possible.

Sánchez jerked his chin up at me. "Isn't your ass busted?" he said. "Are you sure you don't need to lay down?"

"I'm good." I wiped beads of sweat off my forehead.

He flashed a victorious smirk. "You're one of those roaches, aren't you? Don't know when to quit."

"Say what you like," I said. "I heard you'd carried me. It must've been awfully pleasant to touch your germaphobic hands to a cockroach."

His gills moved ever so slightly, as his upper lip twitched. He kept his hands in his pockets, as though it was his shackles, reining in his urge to strangle me.

"I'd snap you like a twig if it wasn't for Sister Mary Eunice. I don't know what kind of voodoo potion you conjured up, but she sure seems to be really attached to you."

Despite my determination, I looked down. Any snide, crude remarks against me would be a fair game. My skin was thick enough, toughened over the years of simple survival in the discriminatory world. But Mary Eunice . . . She was like light, like water, finding any microscopic crack in my skin and seeping through it, into me.

This was what got to me the most. Whether or not they saw through it, the only thing they ever talked about was Mary. Her protection, her mercy, her forgiveness. They never gave me a second to rest, rubbing salt into the wounds.—It was then it dawned on me that, had I not gotten her involved, I wouldn't have suffered this way.

Arden seemed to agree with me, when he came about an hour later after Sánchez. His white coat shone so bright, smelled so sterile.

"I could make this a much more insufferable experience for you," he said, as he tampered with the IV tubing.

The fluids dripped at a faster rate into the drip chamber. He dropped his gaze to the unconnected cannula, and put it back in. In a couple of seconds, I felt my heart begin to palpitate, and felt my stomach twist inside me. His willowy hand pulled a watch out of a pocket of his coat, then. I imagined it was similar to Mary's, the one at my foot. His other hand reached to grab me by the wrist. He stared at the watch, while he took my pulse. On my sweaty skin, his fingertips felt as dry as a desert.

"Instigate an overdose. Put poison in it," he said, dropping my hand. "Would you prefer to suffocate or bleed internally, if you had the luxury of choice?"

I glared back. What with electro-shock therapy being mostly unvocal, it was possibly the first time he directed a word at me. And came this death threat. His face had no expression, his voice flat. None of this was out of the ordinary for him. His eyes saw elsewhere already, as he expected no answer from me.

"You just missed the biggest opportunity if you wanted me dead," I said.

"I only spared you because it was Sister Mary Eunice's wish." His thin lips barely moved above his well-trimmed white beard.

"Of course, you do anything she says."

"Make no mistake," he said. "I did protest against her decision. After learning your act of savagery towards her, I was certain nothing would make me happier than to watch you suffer and expire. But I supposed there was no need to rush anything." He towered over me once again. "I will gladly wait until she no longer finds any value in you."

I had no value for her, despite his despicable assumptions. The relationship between me and Mary had never been a mutual, equal one. From the very start, I had been undeserving of her. But Mary Eunice was always there, to sneak me out of the cell, to keep me company in the chapel, to listen to my nonsensical words, to provide me with the keys. Even now, she continued to make sacrifice for me, a valueless cosmic joke. I had nothing to offer but my own dwindling life. At any moment, she could decide to give up on me.

Arden seemed to be satisfied with my lack of words. A corner of his mouth turned upwards. Only for a moment and slightly, before it returned to its default scowl. It might have been that or the IV, but I felt strange in the stomach. I so longed to leap at him, longed to wipe the ghost of gratification off his face. So, as he turned on his heels and started to walk away, I said,

"I don't think it's so wise to wait so long, though."

He stopped, just before the partitions. He was indeed a tall man, and appeared more so when I looked at him from a distance. If he stood behind the partitions, they couldn't hide the top of his shoulders.

"Preposterously confident, I see," he said.

"Funny, because I was thinking the same thing about you."

As I spoke, I began to regret my spontaneous decision to prolong this unnecessary conversation. Every second I wasted came back weighing upon my infected ass. There couldn't be possibly any benefits of provoking the psycho scientist, either. He could easily kill me. And just like he'd said, he could fake an accident if he ever wished so. But perhaps, after cheating death, I felt invincible.

"I saw what's in the woods," I said. "He's yours, isn't he? The creature."

If this affected him, he didn't show it.

I shifted in the bed. "Do you think you could stay collected like that after I escaped? After the world found out about your crime, the atrocities you call experimentation?" Beads of sweat rolled down my temple. I wiped it with the back of my hand. "And you know when they do, they're going to take Mary Eunice, too."

And at last, his face had a spasm. He came closer, very slowly, but even then, not a hint of rage or enmity flickered in his eyes. It felt like looking into a void, a completely distinctive type of intimidating. And the way he walked, too, sowed uneasy feelings in my chest, only nurturing the drumming of my heart. It was more like gliding across the floor than taking steps. He moved like a ghost.

I thought he was going to kill me right there. I looked around to see if there was anything sharp, or heavy. There were only the IV set, a porcelain bedpan, and a glass of water. I slid down the bed and stood, glaring up at him. He inched forward.

When he stood right before me, however, we heard someone enter the room. The footsteps grew closer, and stopped, in the same spot Arden was standing seconds ago.

"Lana?"

Arden turned around, and over his shoulder, I saw Kit. Indeed, lots of visitors in a short period of time. He looked perplexed, more than alarmed, to see Arden here.

"I suppose it's best I return to my duties," Arden said. He made a gesture of turning around, but halted halfway. "I do appreciate your advice. I will ensure to take it into account." Then he slithered away, not much recognition given to Kit.

I almost fell into bed. All of my muscles loosened up, the dizziness returned, sweat spurted out from every pore of my body. Everything that I'd kept at bay broke the barrier. Then, I felt cold all of a sudden, as though someone dumped a bucket of freezing water over my head.

Kit came rushing to help me lie back down. "Are you okay? You look terrible."

"Oh, Kit—" With a shaking hand, I ripped the cannula out. "I should've kept my mouth shut. He's going to kill me."

"Why? What did you say—"

I blubbered more, things that even I couldn't understand. I grabbed his hand, hard. "We need to get out, before he gets a chance."

"Calm down, Lana. You're scaring me," he said, but didn't pull his hand away. "You need a rest. You almost died." He stroked the back of my hand with his thumb, as he brushed a lock of my hair out of my eyes.

And the warmth seeped through my skin, my heart. I felt growing heat between my eyes.

"I think I did," I said. "I died once. It was true what they say— That your whole life flashes before your eyes. I saw my grandparents, waiting for me at the end of the tunnel. I felt like I was just floating in the air. Finally free." I blinked tears away, and looked at him.

Kit wiped tears off his cheek, holding my hand even tighter. "But you came back."

"For more suffering."

"Don't say that. Don't. As long as you're alive, there's always light."

But there was no light where I lived, and where I would return.

"How long was I in solitary?"

"Two or three weeks," he said. "My ass finally stopped itching."

"Mine got an infection." I let out a weak laugh.

But the fact still stunned me, got me flung out of the sane world. How could such an eternity be only a couple of weeks, when it felt like at least two months?

"So much has happened while you were gone," Kit said, and let out a sigh. "They tie us to our beds at night. They put a new inmate in your cell."

"In my cell?"

He didn't say anything further, as we both knew the implication of it. I lost my room, my home in Briarcliff. Then instead, Jude gave me a permanent home in the horrid basement. And I thought about the letters from Alex, inside the mattress, that I'd never see again. Although the idea disheartened me, I couldn't help but find it amusing, too. My home in Vermont, my home with Wendy, and now my cell. It seemed as though this was my destiny, to be chased out of home after home.

"Grace thinks that," Kit said, "Sánchez must've been the one that told Jude that you were the main schemer. He's been watching you."

"He thinks we are doing lesbian stuff together," I said.

An uncertain smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, but he soon dropped it. "That night, he went to check upon you, and found that Grace was missing, too. Then when he looked for us, he found Sister Mary Eunice passed out in the chapel. Of course, he never hesitates to blame it on you. He's just so goddamn sure it's you."

"Did he tell Grace all that?" I asked.

"No, but . . . Turns out Christians love gossiping."

None of this surprised me in the slightest. It wasn't news that Sánchez was onto me.—He'd warned me. But I did regret not being cautious enough, regret being ignorant of his firm resolutions. My own fortitude occupied all of my focus, blinding me. I regretted that luck didn't help us that night.

"Did she say anything about the creature in the woods?" I said.

He shook his head. "We talked, but— It's hard to even try to remember it. Everytime I look into darkness, I see that face."

"I know."

"I hear them at night," he said. "Howling, like you said."

"How's Grace doing?"

Then, his cheeks colored. He scratched the tip of his nose. "She's fine. She is— She's pregnant."

"Pregnant?"

"Six to seven weeks. You can barely see it under her clothes, but—" He then scratched his head, with a shy smile. "I'm going to be a dad."

I didn't know what to say. I should've been happy for them, but all that came to my mind was, _They're stuck here now._

.

Later that day, a young sister came in. She was tall and scrawny, and looked like the green fairy, Fauna, from Sleeping Beauty. She ordered me to take off my underwear, without a hint of bashfulness, and cleaned my wounds.

"It's healing," Fauna said. "You'll be as good as new in a week, I think."

"That quickly?"

"If you repose as a patient must."

She said it like talking to a child, as if she was a mother teaching her kid that Santa wouldn't like naughty children, and thus they must behave well.—I'd be as naughty as possible, if I could remain bed-bound in the infirmary. One week was too short to enjoy this fleeting sense of freedom, this sense of security. Here, I was still a human being in their eyes, instead of a chunk of meat with a mouth to feed. I wished my body was frailer.

Then, Jude dropped by before dinnertime, looking at me like I'd crawled out of the hell's sewage. My abominable condition seemed to have no effect on her apathetic stance. She asked questions regarding my health, as though they were part of small talk she didn't much fancy.

And I wonder why they even bothered, when my face was the least pleasant thing to see. If they despised my very existence, so much as to wish death and suffering on me, they could have opted not to visit.

Simple as that. Just like Mary Eunice did.

The upsurge of visitors took a great toll on me, emotionally and physically. I couldn't keep the fatigue at bay. Although they tried to feed me, the smell of mashed potatoes only exacerbated my nausea. I wanted to eat. But the IV infusion was all my body could take, it seemed.

* * *

 **thanks everyone for their reviews and reading! you guys make me happy**


	20. Chapter 20

When I opened my eyes, it was dark outside. The moon only gave off the smallest amount of light, coming through the windows near the bed, illuminating the silver of the IV stand. I lifted my head and looked around. Something had waken me up, but there wasn't anything. I saw white racks, white partitions, and white bed frames. They all floated in the darkness like ghosts. The silence sounded too keen in my ears, as I felt my heart start to hammer. Then, just as I decided that it was a dream, a sound came, from the other side of the partitions. Soft breathing. Tentative footsteps.

A light clinking of metal cut through the deadly silence. There followed another one, louder this time. This one did sound metallic though. Instead, it sounded like the person bumped into something. They said something under their breath again.

The air got cold, sharp, and even with my whole body covered, I felt exposed. I pulled the blankets to cover the lower half of my face, with enough caution to make it soundless. I didn't possess the recklessness to hide the entirety of the face. I kept my eyes wide open. My hot breath bounced against the clothing barrier, trapping me in a jail of suffocation. And, there I heard a tiny click of a switch. The room—at least the room behind the partitions—got bright. I saw a shadow, standing next to a lamp, on the screen of a partition. It was too short and small to be Arden.

 _It could be Jude,_ I thought.

The shadow grew bigger, as the person came closer to me, further from the source of light. I closed my eyes, at last, and prayed that they'd buy my pretense of sleeping.

The footsteps had a hint of apprehension, so to speak. They stopped at the foot of the bed. A moment later they came closer. I could hear the rustling of their clothes, hear their breathing. The IV tubing rattled against the stand, and my inside jumped at the sound. And as if to challenge my façade, a hand came to pull the blankets off, revealing my cannula-free vein. I could feel the hair on my arm stand up, and goosebumps arise. The urge to shiver at the sensation ran through my body. I stayed unmoved, still.

But then, the same cold hand rested on my cheek. I started and pulled back. The first thing that came into sight was a pair of wide eyes, as startled as mine. As a gasp fell from her lips, another metallic clunk rung out. Mary Eunice knelt down for whatever she dropped. Her face was on the same level as mine, only for a split second, before I pushed myself up.

Her empty hand flew to my shoulder. "Please. You don't need to get up," she said, as her hand pressed me down. Her voice had a feeble, yet demanding tone, as if she feared that I would leave her.—I would've left her, if I had anywhere else to go at all.

I lay down on my side again, but kept my muscles tight. The lingering ghost of coldness her hand left gave me a funny feeling in the cheek. A sensation tiptoeing between _tickling_ and _tingling_. And the more I paid attention to it, the worse the tingling became. I dug my nails into the pillow, not to scratch or rub the cheek. Then, when her gaze found mine, the untreated tingles spread inside me like a virus, like an infection.

I had no desire to start a staring contest with her.

She pulled up a chair. She put a can on the edge of the bed, fiddling with it, as she cleared her throat. "A candy apple," she said, with a failed smile. "My stepmother taught me apples are the healthiest food on earth."

The can had undesigned decorations of dents here and there. They were quite noticeable among the printed flowers.—I figured she dropped it more than once. Her fingers caressed those craters, as though it could somehow restore the surface to its original smoothness. She removed the lid, then, and tilted it so I could see the inside. In the little light that the tin walls allowed in, the brown coating on the apple glistened.

"I thought—" she said. "Your body needs it, especially right now."

She moved it closer to my face, encouraging me to take it. The thick, sticky scent of peanut butter leaped to my face, and my stomach had a cramp. But, contrary to the negative reaction of the stomach, my mouth still watered. I only glared at it, though.

She then pulled it out by the stick. "Oh— Look, it has nuts on it!" she said. "You aren't allergic to nuts, are you? My aunt Celeste had lots of allergies."

I said nothing.

The candy apple hovered in the air for some moments. Then, as Mary pretended a smile, it went back into the can. "Maybe later," she said, "if you don't feel like eating right now. But don't let anyone see it. Sweets aren't allowed in this house." She placed the can on the nightstand, next to the glass of water.

I turned over, so my back would face her. I waited for her to leave, but I only heard her suppressed sighs. One after another, as though they were the reincarnations of words that died in her throat. The tubing rattled against the stand again.

"Why aren't you hooked up to it?" she said. "You know it's for your health."

I kept my mouth shut.

"Here, let me." Her fingers brushed against my arm, and I shook her off.

I used to throw a fit like this, when I was a child. I'd wrap myself up in my bed, glaring into nothing, with my bottom lip stuck out. This always prompted my mother to come in. I'd stay wordless, motionless, as she sat on the edge of the bed. A few sighs would escape her lips, then. Sometimes, the light in the hallway came into my dark room, and created a shadow of her on the wall. And her shadow would shake her head at my irrational temper, at my stubbornness, the blood of my father that ran through my veins. I always hated that. Then, with a "Talk ta me," her hand would touch my hand or shoulder, to make me face her. I'd pull blankets over my head and grumble. But in the end, her perseverance always prevailed.

Mary had none of such persisting essence in her. She gave up after my first rejection.—I would've been satisfied with just that, if the memory of my mother hadn't come back to harrass me. And perhaps, because of this, I didn't make a violent demand for her departure.

Mary took a shaky breath. And with a tremor in her voice, _she_ apologized. "You have every right to be angry with me," she said. "I let you stay in the basement for too long. I shouldn't have waited until Mr. Sánchez told me you were sick. I should've known better than to—" A sob tore from her throat. She sniffled. "I wanted to come here sooner, but Sister Jude said—" Her voice trembled, harder than I'd ever known, to the point it was almost a string of spurious words. But I managed to hear her say, "You could stay angry, but I can't live if you hate me. You can't hate me. Please don't hate me."

 _Why is this girl so . . ._

Even with my eyes fixed on her shadow on the wall, I could see her scrunched-up face. I stared at the shadow, for more moments.

I turned my head to her, and my body followed.

Red was her face, her eyes in particular. Her bottom eyelashes stuck to the wet skin, more tears rolling down her hot cheeks. She'd had her bangs cut a little, I noticed, because I could see the bottom edge of her brows now. Under her pink, runny nose, her lip struggled with a quiver. All of the muscles of her face twisted, in agony, but at the same time, with such ease.—There was once a time when I would've killed anyone who dared to make her look like this.

"You are," I said, "a stupid girl." My voice sounded eerily calm.—Or Judge might have described it as 'the calm before the storm.'

Her face contorted again. "I know," she said.

"No, you don't. You don't know _anything_. Because if you did, you wouldn't be here. You wouldn't be begging for my forgiveness."

"But—"

"Stop it."

"I hurt you—"

"No—" I sat up. " _I_ hurt you. Why can't you understand that _I_ betrayed you? _Me_. Not _you_! I used you, so I could go somewhere better. Somewhere without you!" My throat began to ache at the outburst. "Don't you get it? You were just a pawn. You weren't as important to me as you thought you were, okay? You should be furious, not crying!"

Of course, it only made her crying even harder. But she shook her head, with her lips pursed, like a little girl.

"I forgive you," she said, as she rubbed her right eye.

Forgive me! Oh, how wonderful that sounded! How revivified it made me! Surely, they would bestow upon her a crown of sainthood while she still lived, and would build statues of St. Mary Eunice all around the world. Such nobility. How terrible it made me.

I wanted to strangle _myself_ with the IV tubing.

"Didn't Jude cane you?" I said. "Didn't she skin you alive, for trusting me and falling into my trap?"

She dropped her gaze to her lap. A tear fell onto her hands there. "But, I knew you wanted to be free," she said. "I can never blame you for wishing for freedom. And I think— I think, even if I'd known, I would have let you. If you could see Miss Wendy again—"

"Oh, fuck you." I felt my neck veins pulsating, blood rushing to my head. "You are pathetic. You're pitiful, more than I ever thought. You act like a merciful saint, but all you really do is run away and refuse to see the truth. Just like a stupid, pathetic little girl!"

I shouted the last word, and she winced at that.

"You would've let me use you?" I said. "No, you wouldn't have been able to defend yourself if you'd known! There's nothing you could've done, but to watch me and cry for help!"

"Please, Miss Winters, please don't shout." Her sobs drowned out the plea.

"Don't you fucking pretend that you care about me, when you've done nothing to defy Jude!"

If I had anything in my hands, I would've thrown it against the wall. My nails dug into my palms. All the shouting inflamed my throat, so much I tasted blood. My vision blurred.

Mary shook her head again, more violently now. Though in defiance, miserable whimpers still leaked from her tight lips. She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth, the way one would put towels under a door to prevent water from seeping in. But, the sounds transformed themselves within her, and leaked from her eyes nonetheless.

"Then—" she said. "Then, what must I do with these feelings? You said— You promised you wouldn't run away. Don't you know, that— That you are the most important person in my life?" Her hands rose to wipe tears, but only smeared them all over her face. "Every morning, you are the first person I look for. When I woke up after the night, I still looked for you. And to learn everything . . . I didn't know what to believe. I was scared of going to sleep, because I thought you'd be gone again, for good. And I— I thought— I hated myself for feeling relieved to know you were still there, in the basement. You— Don't you know?" She rose her face, and her eyes bored into mine. "You're very dear to me. Even if I'm just a— A _pawn_ , if I could be in your life at all, then— I could do nothing but to forgive you. I have no other choices."

For a brief moment, even in the midst of the chaos, I found myself in awe of her, of her self-destructive faith. So blind, so dazzling.

I lay back down. Tears made a small wet patch on the pillow.

"It's dangerous, Mary Eunice," I said. "You shouldn't put so much faith in another person."

Despite everything, she gave a weak smile. "Sister Jude once said I was never good at doing anything in moderation."

"You'll end up like me."

"If loving you makes me insane," she said, "I will gladly take it." Her voice regained calmness, her lip without a quiver.

"I'm not worth it."

"Yes, you are. You deserve everything good in the world, and everything that makes you happy. And I prayed every day that I could be one of those things."

"I'm not an angel, Mary Eunice."

She dropped her gaze to her lap. "I know," she said. "You are more real than that."

She raised her hand and brushed her hair out of her eyes. It was then I took notice of the bandages around her fingers, only of her left hand.

"What happened to your fingers?" I asked.

Her wet cheeks colored, as she played with the edge of a bandage. "I always ask someone else to do sewing for me. But—" She cast a glance at the coat over the bed frame. "Your coat was missing a button. Did you know that?"

"It's not mine," I said. "I stole it from you."

"It is yours now," she said, with clear certainty in her eyes.

I knew then, she would give her life to me in the exact same manner. No doubt, no reluctance, no trepidation. If I were to say to her, _It's not my life_ , she would say, _It's yours now._

I rested my hand, palm up, on the very edge of the mattress. Mary stared at it, in puzzlement. But when our eyes locked, and when I didn't look away, she took it with both of her hands. I felt the rubbery surfaces of the bandages, with its edge floppy with her tears.

"I want to forgive you," I said. "But I don't know if I could."

"I will do anything. Anything."

She had no idea, as clueless as she'd ever been.

"But— None of that matters," I said. "You can't change the past, or bring back the dead." As I stared at our hands, I felt her puzzled gaze.

"Dead? But, you are still here, with me."

I shook my head. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and said, "Tell me about Olga."

In her eyes, a new light of awareness emerged. Things were falling into places inside her head, as she slowly, very slowly, pulled her hands away.

"How did you know?" she said, in such a pitiful tone.

"Grace told me."

She shrunk even smaller. "They were very close, I forgot."

"Tell me. I want to hear it from you."

Then she spoke, little by little, sometimes stopping to take a strangled breath. The more words she uttered, the shakier her voice became. She kept talking. I wished there'd be some kind of a plot twist, like in the movies. Something Grace didn't know, failed to tell me, or hid from me. I waited for that moment, where Mary turned out to be the protagonist of this story, and revealed Grace's ulterior motive.—But the story was as I knew it, only in more detail and through Mary's lens.

She didn't look up, not even once. But I saw a drop of tear after another falling straight onto her lap, like a loose faucet. By the time the storytelling reached the inevitable death of Olga, her hands glistened, as if she was fresh out of the shower.

I handed her a towel that was in the nightstand.

"What happened to her body?" I asked.

She wiped her hands. "I don't know. Sister Jude and Dr. Arden usually take care of it— I mean, of them."

"Did they bury her here?"

"I don't know. I don't know. I don't know," she said. "I didn't think anything of it. I was young and ignorant. And I tried to forget about her, because— Because Sister Jude said it was for the best." She choked back her sobs. "I did forget about her for years, but when you came, you came with her."

"Because of our sexuality?"

She shook her head. "No, it's deeper than that. Your confidence, intelligence, compassion . . . You made me feel protected like— Like she used to."

And both of us betrayed her the way she'd never imagined.

"Every time I looked at you," she said, "it was like looking at her. And at night, I started to have these dreams." She lifted the towel to her face, pressing it into her eyes. "I'm standing in her room, wathing her sleep in the bed. I have this—" Her fingers fiddled with the white towel. "—this black bottle in my hands. I make her drink it. The poison. I want to stop, but my body doesn't listen to me. I kill her, and I can't save her."

She clutched the towel to her chest, as she curled up in a ball in the chair. Her forehead rested on the edge of the bed. Her shoulders shook. The vibration of it traveled through the mattress, echoing inside me, too. My heart ached. But I didn't know if it did only for Olga, or for her and Mary. I put my hand on Mary's cheek. The contact made her flinch. She lifted her face, and when she saw my face, she wrapped her hands around mine, as though the salvation was in my touch.

"I'm so stupid and weak and blind," she said between her whimpers. "I should've protected her. I should've stood up to Sister Jude."

The lump in my throat was big. I didn't know my voice could pass it. "You should've," I managed to say.

.

It would have been easy, if it had been only us, if our own forgiveness could've healed those scars, and brought back the dead. But it wasn't our tears and penitence Grace wished for. And we couldn't listen to Olga anymore. We could only hold onto each other, even if it might not suffice.

After all of that, our emotional stamina seemed to have run out. We couldn't utter another word. My eyelids were swollen, the extra weight of them making it a chore to keep my eyes open. I imagined it was the same for Mary, as she sometimes nodded off. Every now and then, she would almost fall off the chair. She'd jerk awake, let out something between a whimper and a sigh, and look at me. I think seeing me there reassured her. I think, like she said to me, she feared that I might disappear on her again. So, every time she smiled with her tired eyes, I'd tightened my grip on her hand, and tell her to go back to sleep.

I watched her like this until it was time for her to leave. Before her departure, she insisted on hooking me up to the IV.

"I don't want to be doped up," I said. "It messes with my brain."

She nodded once, hesitantly. "But promise me you will eat the apple. You have to eat something."

I promised I would, and bade her good morning.


	21. Chapter 21

Everything seemed to be the way it used to be, at least, on the outside. But under the surface, hidden from everyone's eyes, a shadow of great peril stood right behind me, creeping upon me, with its claws sharpened and bared. My life was now at stake, more than ever. Damn my big mouth. My ever-growing collection of enemies had the name and the enmity of Arden. It had turned my life into a ticking bomb of a sort. But unlike Kit, I only had myself to blame for cutting the wrong wire.

In a few days, Jude would probably consider putting me back in the solitary. Once it began to happen, nothing could persuade her otherwise. There would be little to no chance of ever seeing the light of the sun, no chance of seeing Wendy. I had barely jumped over the chasm of death before. I didn't know if the same luck would save me next time.

My body itched. I had grown sick of staying in bed, of having nothing to do but to stare at Mary's pocket watch. I wanted to walk around to find an escape hole or a hiding place. I wanted to go to the library, to Alex. But all of this meant risking the freedom and respite I had.

At least, I thought, it couldn't be a punishable offense to walk around the infirmary. I stood in front of the medicine rack, and rummaged through the heaps of various drugs. There wasn't anything in particular I looked for. But the act of doing something was more important. This way, I didn't have to feel like a powerless loser. I buried a bottle of some kind of pills and a roll of bandage deep in my gown pocket, for whatever eventuality waiting for me. I did find some pairs of medical scissors, too, in a drawer, but decided not to take them. They'd be cumbersome, and I'd have no explanation if someone found it out.

I walked over to the window, then. A tiny portion of the bright sky peeked through the gap between the white curtains. The thin fabric had freezing air trapped between them and the windows. When I pulled them open, it freed the air, and the air caressed my cheeks. It was a sunny day. The snow had melted away, leaving no remnants of the night of escape. The brown woods stretched away before me, and a meandering narrow road divided the tree ocean into two. I looked was car parked in front of the building. Two people, dressed in secular clothes, walked out to the stoop, then got into the backseat of the car. I watched it drive away, watched as the shadow of the car got smaller and smaller, into the woods.

I wished I could just drive away like that. I wished it was that easy. I would hit the gas pedal until my foot went numb, until my body forgot the existence of the brake.

.

Nobody visited me during the day, with the exception of Rose, who brought me food twice. Both of the times, however, I told her I wasn't hungry. She let out an odd shrill exclamation, complaining about her bad knees, but exhibited no hesitation to leave. And without her presence, things fell into a void of perpetual silence. In here, I didn't even have a rat or an insect to talk to. It felt like the entire world no longer remembered, or cared about me. The pulse of my sickness regained its strength in my solitude, and I shrunk in the bed.

Because of this, it offered me great comfort to see Mary at night, to see her coy smile. I knew we shared the sense of revival. We had our old routines back.

"I brought you chicken legs," she said. "Sister Jude had them for dinner and gave me a little." She placed a rather big block of tin foil on the nightstand.

The oily, peppery smell found its way out of the tin wrapper, and filled the air. Had my health been in the regular state, the lavishness of Jude's life would have infuriated me. But, I felt too weak.

I only buried my nose in the pillow. "You know food makes me sick," I said.

"But if you don't eat something—" Then, her eyes flew to the nightstand. What she looked for was not there. "Did you eat the apple? What did you do with the can?"

I told her it was under the bed.

She drew it out from under where I lay. As she took the lid off, her brows knotted together. "You didn't eat it. You promised, didn't you?" Her voice, uncharacteristically, sounded more accusatory than disappointed.

I pulled the blankets over my head.

"Miss Winters," she said. She tugged at them, trying to look into my face. "Please, you have to eat."

"It's not my fault that my body doesn't want any."

"Then I will have to hook you up to the IV."

I groaned.

She fell quiet, and sank back into her chair. Countless sighs disturbed the stillness of the night, as she stared down at the colorful can in her lap. Then, she told me how much it pained her to see me like this, all dwindled and hollow. It killed her inside, to hold my hand and see the bulging veins, to feel the bones under my grey skin. I looked like a living corpse. The sight shook her with mortal fear.

"I can't let you die like this, not when I know I can help," she said. "No. I refuse to be a failure like that." She placed both the candy apple and the chicken legs on the bed, in front of my face. "You will eat either of the two. I will not accept anything else." As she peered at me, I expected to see tears in her eyes. But, there shone those sparks, instead. The fire smoldering, for me, like it used to.

I sat up and, after some internal debate, picked up the apple. I felt like this would make her happier. The thin coat of caramel broke easily, but the fruit itself was firmer than I thought. My teeth, weakened by weeks of watery food, found the pressure rather too strong to bare. I could feel it damaging my gums. After some bites, my jaw grew tired, dull ache in my cheeks.

"How does it taste?" Mary asked.

I couldn't really tell. "It's sweet." I smiled, and her eyes crinkled up. I held it out to her. "Here. Have some."

"No. No, I can't. It's for you."

"You have to eat, too. You don't look like you're fed well, either."

She chewed the inside of her cheek that used to have more roundness.

"We'll share," I said. "It's not like I'll be able to eat the whole thing anyway."

So we did that, one bite at a time, before handing it to the other. Timidity and indecision dominated her demeanor at first, and her bites were small. She held the stick with one hand, while the other held the end of the sticky surface in place with just the tips of her fingers. Even then, she couldn't open her mouth wide enough, allowing the apple to escape her teeth by much. I supposed she wasn't familiar with eating an apple like this. But with each bite and awkward smile, she got the hang of it, seemed to gain confidence in her actions.

She collected the bits of nuts that fell in her lap. I lay down on my side, and watched her bring them to her mouth, one by one. As I took another bite, more nuts crumbled to the mattress. I brushed them off.

"Miss Winters." Mary tightened her lips, with her head tilted.

I shrugged. "Sorry," I said. I gave her the apple.

Though she took it, her lip remained between her teeth. The apple was almost gone. I thought her full stomach made her wordless, but then she said, "Does it still hurt? Your . . ."

"My ass?"

She grimaced slightly. "I wish you'd be more modest, but yes. Your . . . rear side. The wounds."

I found myself smiling at her, at her fragile chastity. "Not if I lie like this," I said.

"Good." She mirrored my smile, and brought the candy to her mouth.

"You know," I said. "Wendy and I used to eat breakfast in bed on Sunday mornings. I'm almost always hung-over, but there's no better remedy than her blueberry pancakes. We drink coffee, and stay in bed until noon, just like two lazy idiots do."

"I've never had food in bed," she said. "My stepfamily never allowed it."

"It's the best feeling in the world. It's warm. It's cozy."

"But, isn't it unsanitary? You might spill something."

"Yeah, sort of," I said. "But that's why washers exist. Oh— But, honey is truly a pain in the ass if you spill it."

Under her bangs, she raised her brows. "You've spilled honey?"

"Well— In my defense, she tried to tickle me when I was eating."

Her lips curled into a smile. "Never had a tickle fight, either."

"Lucky you," I said. "But it was her favorite satin sheet. That upset her." I put my hand next to the pillow, and felt the rough fabric under my fingertips.

Then I tried to remember the scent of her perfume, the sweet smell that lingered in every thread of our bedsheets. It would follow me to every corner of our house, like an invisible embrace. Wendy knew it was my biggest weakness. She knew it, and would wear it extra much when she needed to get her way. Especially after a fight. With that perfume on, she made it so impossible for me to stay angry.

But— Was it rose, or was it cherry blossom? Something entirely different? I could never seem to remember.

###

The apple had done tremendous wonders for me, it seemed. I felt bold, encouraged, back to the early days of rebellion and defiance. It was no magic, of course, but something similar to it ran through my veins. My body felt light. I felt like a bird, as I sneaked down the halls, far from the infirmary.

My choice of leaving the bed empty came laden with heavy consequences. I knew, if anyone found out about this, if they told it to Jude, it'd give her a reason good enough to claim that no further treatment was necessary. She would take away the freedom and respite I had right now. She would throw me back in solitary right away, might even deny me of a few meals for good measure. I knew all that. Still, _fuck her_. I needed to do something about Alex, before it was too late.

I slipped into the library and went straight to the hole. In the shadow, as I crouched down, I saw more than one letter. And although they were mere pieces of paper, the sight of them, so alone in the dark place, squeezed my heart with guilt. Then, when the pain faded away, there came a sort of fear. I took them out, but only fiddled with them, afraid of what I might find.

In my hands lay three letters. Three sets of words from Alex, three demands for my response. Kit said it had been two or three weeks since the night of failed escape. Three tiny letters couldn't have been sufficient for Alex. They just held back, because any more would have overflown the hole.

Yet, I didn't find any words of reproach, any hint of bitterness. There was only loneliness, on the expanses of white paper. One of them talked about the weather, Christmas memories, and the coming New Year's. This was written before the other two. If Jude hadn't thrown me in solitary confinement, this one would have been the only letter Alex had to leave. The other two, written after days of silence from me, shared similarities, and I couldn't tell which was written before which.

 _-I myself have been bed-ridden for the last couple of days. I hope you're not one of the patients with the flu.-_

 _-The nights are quiet without your company. I wished I knew who you were so I could know what happened to you.-_

I read them. And I read them again.

It was cruel of me to keep them waiting like this, but more than that, my own weakness drove me insane. I knew this would happen. I knew, when I decided to escape, that I'd hurt Alex like this. But it was the bluntness of the words that throbbed to an agonizing pulse. It was the simple plea for companionship. Here again, I was given the forgiveness I didn't deserve, and given value to my worthless self. I wondered what caused people around me to be so blind. A punch in the face would've hurt less.

I went to a bookshelf to get a piece of paper. I didn't know what to write. No word seemed to hold enough divinity, when this would be the last letter to them. But at least, they deserved to be free of false hope. I couldn't stand to imagine them coming back here over and over again, as they felt their hope fading away. Sometimes, it hurts less to end all it at once. I flipped through the pages of a TV magazine, looking for a perfect page to rip out.

Then, there was a noise.

I didn't have enough time to react if I wanted. The moment my fingers froze at the sound, Jude appeared before me, and my whole body turned into ice.

"Shit." The word left my mouth against my will.

"There's no room for such a foul mouth, Miss Winters," she said.

"You caught me off guard."

"Oh— I do apologize." She joined her hands in front of her, and tilted her head. "Were you doing something that makes you guilty? Besides disobeying my order?"

I suppressed the urge to step back. "I've wanted to come back here for a while." My throat ached with arid anxiety. "I didn't like how I abandoned my responsibility."

"Your responsibility at the moment is to stay in bed."

I nodded to her, playing obedient. "You're right. I must've been—" I faked a laugh. "—delirious or something, with the fever and all. I should go back."

I put the magazine back, grabbed the letters from Alex off the shelf, and buried them in my pocket. All in swift, flowing motion, as if it was another part of the duty. I brushed past her, then, almost fleeing. I couldn't care less that I looked like a dog with its tail between its legs.

"Hold on," Jude said.

Just like this, my legs just stopped functioning, and couldn't carry me any further. Then, there came an abrupt surge of nausea striking me. I developed tunnel vision. When I turned around, I could barely see her figure.

She stepped closer to me again, and held out a hand to me. Not a hand of help, but of condemnation. "Show me what's in your pocket," she said.

"There's nothing that could possibly pique your interest. Only trash."

Her hand stayed afloat. "I used to enjoy this little game of yours," she said. "But it's gotten quite old, to be frank. Now, give me what you hid in your pocket."

I looked down at her hand, dry and wrinkled. And as I handed one of the letters, I thought, _That's a hand of an old human_. And as I watched her face while she read it, I thought, _God, she really is an old lady_. She didn't say anything. But her eyes rose to look at me once, and those wrinkles seemed to deepen, those veins seemed to thicken.

"I didn't write it," I said. "I just found it in a— In one of the books. I have no clue who wrote it." At least, there was some truth in that.

"I'm aware of that. I have seen your handwriting," she said.

And yet, the flare in her eye's only grew more torturous, seeing through me. Her hand rose and massaged the skin between her brows. The gut-deep breath she forced out of her mouth felt hot, full of pent-up frustrations. I thought, when she opened her eyes, she might shoot laser beams out of her eyes.

"I should go back," I said.

She opened her eyes at last. "I will walk with you." And when she saw the fleeting reluctance on my face, she said, "Unless you have a problem with it. Do you? Is there some place else you'd like to wander in?"

"Of course not," I said. "I just feel bad that you have to spare your time for me."

"Should've thought about that before deciding to sneak out of your bed." She began to walk, then.

There was a sort of strong force, silence that by any means couldn't be broken, in the way she walked. As I followed her, I couldn't keep my eyes off the hole in the wall. The remaining letters rustled in the pocket. And I looked back many times, walking down the hallway.

Jude strode as though I wasn't even there, with certainty quickening her steps. I wondered if it would ever catch her attention if I strayed. I began to take smaller steps, adding the pretense of wobbling once in a while, lest she had eyes in the back of her head.

If she had supernatural eyesight, she opted to ignore me still. At the foot of Stairway to Heaven, however, she stopped and looked at me with her human eyes. "Please do walk like a normal person, Miss Winters. This maybe a house of the sinful, but thank God I do not manage a chicken farm," she said.

I straightened my back. "The wounds you gave me haven't healed."

"Do you need someone to carry you up the stairs, then? Oh, look— Seems like our beloved Hispanic guard is available now."

I followed her gaze, and found Sánchez on the floor above us. He stood by the railing, looking over the entrance hall like he owned it. Looking from below, I thought his gills looked wider. I threw Jude a glare, and walked up the stairs before her. But then, at my second or third step, there came Rose hurrying down the same stairs. Jude had a visitor in her office, she said.

"If it's another damned reporter wanting a scoop," Jude said, "I don't need another one to lock up."

"It's not," Rose said, as she brushed past me.

I began to walk away again.

"Well, who is it, then?— Stay there, Miss Winters."

I swallowed any protest, and did as I was told.

Rose held back the answer, and seemed just preoccupied with the steps. Jude repeated her question, louder this time, despite the smaller distance between them. At last, Rose stood next to Jude and whispered something in her ear, her hand hiding her mouth from me. Jude's tired expression didn't change. She looked at me once, but I only thought she just made sure of my presence. She ordered Rose to take me back to the infirmary.

"See to it that she stays in bed," she said.


	22. Chapter 22

I had come too far to obey her orders, that was for certain.

Life works in funny ways sometimes. Jude's discovery of Alex's existence, contrary to her expectations and aims, only encouraged the pluck of my heart. There was nothing she could do to punish me that she hadn't done. If she wished to surprise me, she had to boost her creativity to the next level. To inflict deathly suffering on me, the only way would be to literally kill me. I had nothing to fear. Even after my return the infirmary, my desire to go out there again still smoldered in me.

But Rose stayed in the room with me, beyond royal to Jude's order. She would make the pretense of organizing the medicine rack, or inspecting my IV tubing. Those were her not-so-subtle attempts to keep an eye on me. In fact, she couldn't seem to sit still for more than five minutes, as though she feared I might disappear into thin air. As though Jude would hold her entirely accountable if I ever did.—But I knew, Briarcliff suffered from a festering sickness called short-handedness, both nuns and guards. It was a luxury, something Jude would never allow anyone, to have a personal staff only to yourself. At some point she would have to leave me.

While I waited for the inevitable moment to come, I wrote a letter to Alex. I wrote it on the other side of a letter from them, as it was the only paper available to me. I wrote that I could never come back again, that I was sorry, and that I would never forget them. I stashed it away in my pocket, then took out Mary's pocket watch. It read past six p.m.—Rose had been loitering around for half an hour, and still managed to find things to tidy up. The reeling of my head intensified, as she began to wipe the bottles of pills with a towel, one by one.

"Isn't it almost the time for dinner?" I said.

Her hands stopped. "It may be," she said. She grabbed another bottle off a shelf.

"Could you go get it for me? Please?"

A breathy chuckle escaped her chubby lips. "You never touch your food, Miss Winters."

"I feel like eating now," I said. "It's been a long day."

Her eyes looked at me from behind her glasses, as she gave a reprimanding shake of her head. "Wait until someone comes to bring it. I'd rather not leave you unsupervised."

"But I'm famished. _Please_."

She put down the bottle with a clink. "You wouldn't have been so, had you not run around."

All these old nuns, creatures of stubbornness, so spellbound by the _virtue_ of self-protection. Although her demeanor was softer than Jude's, the self-righteous air prevailed, in her voice, in her words, in her stare, even in the reflection in her glasses. She was a minion of Jude. And just like the old lunatic, she was not so easy to deceive.

Then, to worsen my headache, there came in some more people. A woman's voice called Rose, and she went behind the partitions. As I strained my ears for their whispers, some feet shuffled across the room. Kit showed himself. He buried his hands deep in his pockets, grimacing. He glared down at his toes, and never made eye contact.

I sat up. "Hey, what's going on?"

He didn't answer.

"Miss Winters." Rose came back, and stood next to him. "Mr. Walker is going to look after you until the bedtime. Don't give him too much trouble." She walked away, then, without any lingering sentiments towards her pill bottles.

While they exited the room, I remained on the bed, quite confused. Of all people, they decided Kit, with whom I'd attempted an asylum-break, would be a suitable option for some reasons.

 _What a strange turn of the event_.

I looked at Kit, as he pulled up the chair and sat beside the bed.

"Kit, is everything alright?"

He took out a small package from under his navy cardigan. "I made you a sandwich." He placed it in my lap. "It's just bread and cheese, but— I thought you'd like it." His smile seemed forced.

I glanced down at the sandwich. "Thanks," I said, mirroring his smile. "I will eat later. I'm not really hungry right now."

My response didn't seem to intrigue him. His gaze dropped again. He took out a cigarette pack, and lit one.

"Kit, what's wrong?" I said. "Did something happen to Grace?"

"No, no. She's fine."

"The baby?"

"The baby's fine, too."

"Then what is it?"

He took a deep breath once. "Nothing's wrong, Lana. Go to sleep." His brows knotted, as if he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. Suddenly he looked much older.

My journalistic instinct screamed for the truth, but I gave him some space instead. I had more pressing issues anyway, than making a fruitless attempt to read his mind.

"Kit, I need to go somewhere," I said. He looked up, looking me right in the eye. "Can you help me sneak out?"

"You need to stay here. That's why I'm here."

"I know, but it's really important." I got on my feet, but he grabbed my wrist.

"No," he said.

"Jude's going to put me back in solitary soon. I don't know how much time I have left."

"Lana."

"You can tell Jude I've attacked you, or whatever you like—"

"Lana!"

I flinched, and it seemed like he did, too. His eyes resembled those of a deer in the headlights, scared for his life. He loosened his grip around my wrist.

"I'm sorry," he said, falling back into his seat. "I'm so sorry." The hand still kept me captive with wavering insistence. I had never seen him so miserable.

I put my hand on his shoulder. "Kit, let me go."

"I can't." He pressed the heel of his hand against his eye. "Jude— She threatens to take the baby away if I don't do as she tells me to do. I have to be her slave. I have to. I can't lose my family again." His shoulder trembled under my palm, the crushing frustrations welling up in his eyes. His bottom lip quivered. A teardrop rolled down his cheek.

My heart broke, ached for him, and soon, the pain changed into anger. Ugly, pure resentment. But like his frustrations, this flame had nowhere else to go but deeper inside me. I dropped my hand, and sat back on the bed.

"You can let me go now," I said. "I'm not going anywhere."

His empty hands rested on his knees. "I've got to protect them."

"I know. I will never blame you for that. This is all on Jude. No parent _ever_ deserves to fear for their child's safety."

"But, I can't help but think that—" His nails dug into his thighs— "if it wasn't for the baby, Jude wouldn't have had—"

"Don't."

"I could've helped you, instead of giving her a tool to manipulate me with."

I reached to take his hand. "Guilt is exactly what Jude wants you to feel. It eats away at you, and destroys you. Destroy everything precious in your life. Don't let her win." I put my hand on his cheek, and made him look up. "Be proud, Kit. You'll be the greatest dad in the world."

He drew his brows together, even tighter. "But what kind of a father am I if I couldn't watch him grow? I can't be there when he speaks or walks for the first time. I might not be able to even see his face at all."

"Of course, you can."

"How? How could you be so sure?" he said. "I've never been so fucking scared. What if the only thing he ever remembers about me is me being Bloodyface? And he lives to hate me?"

I tried to smile away the quivering of my lip. "He won't, because I'll get out, and I'll get _you_ out." I scooted closer to him. "Has Grace told you she wants to move back to France? You're not just going to watch him speak for the first time. You're going to be there and watch him become bilingual. He's going to soon make fun of you in a language you barely understand. And you're going to be proud of him."

He could see through this feigned optimism. But he smiled, playing along. Neither of us knew what else to do. As Oscar Wilde put it, the basis of optimism is sheer terror. And, it hurt less to act oblivious, like this, than to acknowledge the uncertainty our future held.

"Will you be his godmother?"

I said I would love to.

Then, Rose came back with two trays of food. She hovered a little longer, inspecting the IV tubing, and asking Kit if I gave him any trouble. Her sense of obligation felt almost compulsive—possibly fear-driven—so much that Kit had to talk her into leaving.

"A fruit fly. That woman," I said. I scooped up the mashed potatoes with a fork.—They run off through the gaps of the silverware, and fell back into the plate with _very mouthwatering_ plops.

Kit played with his green peas. "She has more resemblance to a tarsier, I think." He held his hand in front of his face. "With her big eyes and arthritis."

I put the so-called food aside, and fumbled with the cheese sandwich instead. Just the mere sight of food turned my stomach. I felt it twist and ache. I knew, even before eating, that the sandwich would end up in the bedpan with my gastric juices sooner or later.

"Where is it that you needed to go to?" Kit said, as he dipped his bread into the mashed potatoes. "Or, were you just trying to escape?"

"No. I really needed to go," I said, "to the library. But it doesn't matter now."

"Jude isn't making you work there anymore, is she?"

I gave a headshake. I hesitated to tell him the truth.—But who was I kidding? There was no point in keeping this a secret, when Jude had snatched the cat out of the bag.

"I made a friend there." I took my letter out of the pocket. "I call them Alex. I don't know their real name, don't know what they look like. But they're the closest friend I had here at Briarcliff. I owe them a proper goodbye."

"Your friend lives in the library?"

"No, no." I smiled at him. "They are like us, an inmate."

Then I told him everything—the hole in the wall, the letter exchange, their beautiful handwriting. The short, but life-deep history of me and Alex. And the unexpected, but inevitable end of the story, brought by Jude. It felt strange. It felt like I was telling him about an imaginable friend I had in my childhood. But Alex was real—as real as I ever was to them.

"I want you to leave this in the hole," I said, and handed Kit the letter. "Doesn't have to be right away. I just need them to know it wasn't my choice to quit on them."

He took it, and stared down at the words. "Aren't these your initials at the bottom?" he said.

I gave him a nod.

"It's risky. Jude might not realize you're involved now, but she will recognize your handwriting. And your initials. This is like— Your fingerprint."

"What could she possibly do now? Put me on the death row?"

Perhaps this witticism was ill-timed, inappropriate considering the situation my companion was in.

Still, Kit appeared unaffected, as he leaned in. "But she is the God here."

"I'm an atheist, Kit," I said. "She's just a human. Insane, like the rest of us."

###

I thought I'd seen Jude's insanity-colored face for the last time. It turned out I was wrong. When she came to the infirmary later that evening, irritation and fatigue radiated from her. Before any words, she let out a sigh upon arrival. And another one, when she stood at the foot of my bed.

"I'm not dead yet. Come back tomorrow." I said.

Her eyes didn't look at me. "Mr. Walker," she said. Only with that, she gave him an apathetic wave of the hand and made him leave. She walked around with a slightly bent back, almost dragging her feet.

I sat up. "I didn't even get to say goodnight to him properly."

Her frantic march didn't stop, as though she was too exhausted to just stand still. There was something uncharacteristic, something similar to fretfulness, in the way her gaze never left the floor. Some murmurs left her lips. I really thought she went mad for a second.

"What?" I said, feeling the temperature of my blood drop a little.

"I said you should've stayed in here." She half-bared her teeth. Even then, she didn't look up. "You should've stayed away from us. _Us!_ Then none of this would have happened. But you came like a pest, with your corrupt appetite for success, and ruined what was perfectly fine, wreaking havoc on everything we had. We were so much in peace before you." She kept mumbling more, like a true maniac.

Her wrath had never frightened me more. As unjust and hypocritic as she was, her state of mind and the fluctuation of it were coherent. But this haphazard outburst made no sense at all. I could not find a plausible explanation. It was out of the blue. No one could've seen it coming, and even as she kept going, I failed to wrap my head around what was happening.

"You're a danger to this institution, to the Monsignor Howard." Her chest heaved. "No, I will not allow you to ruin him, too. We have a plan together."

I glanced at the medicine rack, where I'd found scissors yesterday in the drawer. But between it and me, there might as well have been an ocean, dominated by a menacing predator that could launch torpedos out of its mouth.—I should've hidden a pair in the nightstand when I could.

"I have no idea what you're talking about, sister."

"I'm doing this to protect us. Our future." Her eyes, as she glared at me at last, had a strong resemblance to those of the creature in the woods. "I tried to cure you. I showed you mercy— But maybe the sin is mine, for giving you such free reign—"

"Free reign?" I couldn't help but drop my subservient pretense. "What freedom did I ever have here? You've been holding me against my will for— I don't even know how long. You refuse to let me contact anyone. And every goddamn day, I worked for you like your fucking slave. You make everyone work for you like fucking slaves!"

"Watch your mouth, young woman." She pointed her shaking finger at me. "That kind of attitude will not be tolerated—"

"I'm so sick of you, Jude, of your self-righteousness and bigotry."

"You will return to the basement the first thing in the morning." She began to walk away.

I got up and followed her. "You can't lock me up forever."

"We'll see about that," she said. Her gait seemed to be steadier now, with more clarity than a minute ago. Back to the usual Jude. The return of the usual madness.

"Someday, you'll die of old age, and I'll outlive you," I said. "I'll get out, and reveal every inhumane treatment you ever subjected me to. Everything. Admit it, Jude, you're no different from those pedophiliac priests!"

She closed the door on me, and I heard her locking it. The simplest sound boiled my blood even more.

"The entire world will learn how crooked you are! What a despicable criminal you are!" I banged my fist against the door. "The church, too. And you, even in your death, will damage the reputation of your great Monsignor!"

No answer came from the other side.


	23. Chapter 23

I screamed. I banged on the door and rattled the latch. My throat burned, but I kept screaming until a fit of coughing replaced it. Then I tried to kick the door down, and when the answer was dead silence, I threw my weight against it. The impact only traveled through my limbs, and rippled in the flesh of my ass. I tried once more. The tip of my shoulder collided against the surface, with no adequate cushion of muscle or fat between the door and the bones.—This would leave a nasty bruise. A stabbing pain throbbed in my shoulder, and left the arm with temporary paralysis. I strode to the window and waggled the lattice, hoping it would loosen the screws. But my body had lost all the energies, as weak as a goddamn rat. Too debilitated to do anything, to save my useless self.

I fell back into the bed, irritated, and screamed into the pillow. The pain, resentment, fury, and all other things fatally negative solidified in me, pushing tears out of my eyes.—I didn't want to cry. Jude wasn't and shouldn't be worth my tears.

Then, I felt the despair in me set my gut on fire, so scorching the tears evaporated. My nails dug into my palms. Heat gathered in my hands, and I buried my fist into the pillow, hard. I imagined it to be Jude's hideous, wrinkled face, and aimed at her nose and cheeks. Although each blow landed with perfect precision in my frantic imagination, in reality they only ended with a soft thud of feathers.—I ached to hear her bones break, to see her blood on my knuckles. What I wouldn't have given, in that heat of the moment, to hear her beg for _my_ mercy. And when I caught myself wishing for such horrendous things, I felt my blood turn into sluggish ice. Tears returned. My heart hammered as though after a sprint. I had to remind myself to breathe. I looked down, and found my hands shaking. For a moment, I froze there with mingled horror and disbelief.

I did not recognize this person.

This was not who I remembered myself to be. A human with many flaws, but I didn't recognize this bloodthirsty side of me. Before Jude and Briarcliff, I had never wished death on anyone, not with such strong conviction. Sure, my colleagues were assholes, and my boss a bigger ass. But, I used to believe all lives had the same value. I was no longer certain.—Jude had done this, to me. Not only did she chain me and abuse me, she made me a hateful person, filled me with her anger and venom. And I loathed her for it, for messing with my mind, for making me one of her kind. The intensity of the feeling suffocated me. The longer it stayed in, the more acid it produced. It dissolved me from within. And the only way to alleviate the pain was to let the acid out, to hate more.

So, as I swore to kill Jude with my own bare hands, I hated Wendy for selling me out. I hated my mother for giving birth to me. I hated my father for marrying her. I hated myself for being the way I was.

For the first time in my life, I wished I wasn't gay, and that thought suffocated me even more.

The sound of a soft drizzle came from outside. I wished, as I lay down, that I could feel the rambling of thunder on my skin for the last time.

###

It stopped raining, though, before midnight. The sky had no clouds, as if the rain had been my delusion. The near full moon illuminated the woods below my window. I stared at the stars, and didn't move an inch. I stared at them until the shining image of them was forever branded behind my eyelids, until my eyeballs began to sting, threatening to blind me. Despite my inner turmoil, it was the most tranquil night I'd ever had at Briarcliff.

And then, I heard a sound of jingling keys outside the door.

Mary rushed in. Her distinctive whimpers filled the air at once, stirring up the serenity. But, in spite of the situation, I found the disruption soothing. Her cries felt like a lullaby. When she saw me by the window, those whimpers grew louder and more uninhibited. She didn't bother to turn the light on, and came to me, straight into my arms.

"Sister Jude—"

"I know," I said.

Her whole body shuddered, as she held onto me for her dear life.

I led her to the bed by the hand, and made her sit with me on the edge of it. "It's okay, Mary Eunice. It's okay." I ran my hand up and down her trembling back.

"No, it's not." She only wailed more. "How am I supposed to live without you?"

"You won't. It's not like I'm going anywhere. I'm stuck here."

"Sister Jude would never—" She wiped her cheek. "She'd never let me in. She said so. Said I could never even pass the gate."

"What gate?"

"The front gate," she said, as though it was a profanity.

And that deepened my bewilderment. "Why wouldn't she let you pass there?" I said.

She looked up, and in the moonlight, more tears brimmed in her eyes. "Because— Because I did something I shouldn't have. I knew how Sister Jude would react, but— Now she's sending me away to Washington." She threw herself in my arms again. "I'm never going to see you again."

Now, the initial confusion got tangled up with shock, undermining my ability to grasp the situation. And as her tears wet my neck, I repeated her words over and over again in my head.

 _Washington_. The fog cleared up before me. _We'll be apart forever._

I felt a lump in my throat. I tried to blink my tears away. The idea devastated me, more than my return to solitary confinement. Still, I felt oddly calm. Calm enough to find Jude's meticulous management choices impressive. Without Mary Eunice, I had no chance of ever getting out.

"Washington . . ." I said. "D.C.?"

"No. The state."

"But, that's the other side of the country."

A long, frail whimper tore from her throat. "Sister Jude told me I'm leaving tomorrow morning. I tried to pack, but Sister Alice said I was being too noisy."

The image of her getting in a cab flashed before my eyes. An image I would never have the luxury of seeing. I could only curl up in the basement, as she sobbed the whole time. Even at the airport, even in her new room, even in the small chapel they would have. She'd be sobbing. And there would be no one to hold her hand until dawn.

I felt the blistering anger return inside my chest.

"What did you do that she wants you gone so goddamn soon?" I stood up and walked around. I wanted to knock everything over in that place. "Fuck. Fuck! What am I gonna do without you? You're my only— My only—"

She let out an 'I'm sorry' between her whimpers.

I crouched down before her, and took her hands. "I shouldn't have shouted. I'm sorry," I said. "I just don't know how to do this without you."

"Me neither." Her tears rolled down her cheek, and landed on my hand. "I wish I could just run away with you."

At first, these words struggled to go through my ears, my brain. It's not that such an idea had never occurred to me. It is just that every time such fantasies started to dominate my reality, I had simply shut them out. I had to throw water on the fire, before it could burn me. It had been a dangerous thought of frenzied hope, until now.

"Will you, really?" I said. "Then come with me. We could leave tonight. This is our only chance, and the last."

Mary sniffled. "But, where do we go?"

"We'll figure out later. Right now, only think about getting out. You were packing in your room, you said?"

She nodded.

"Good. Go back for your stuff," I said. "It doesn't matter if you don't have everything. Make it as quick as possible. We'll meet up at the secret tunnel."

"Okay." Her breath trembled, as she slowly let go of my hands. She got on her feet, but then caught my sleeve. "What if Sister Alice is still up?"

I totally forgot about her annoying roommate. "Tell her . . . Tell her that you are moving your baggage to the entrance hall so you wouldn't have to carry it in the morning."

She hugged me one more time, before going back to her room.

I picked the coat up from the footboard of the bed, and put it on. The moon looked clear, almost transparent, beyond the window frame. The naked branches of the woods remained undisturbed by the wind. Although the weather was ideal for the journey ahead, a single barrier of clothing couldn't provide sufficient heat to fight the December night. I crossed my fingers that the temperature wouldn't drop. Then, I went to the medicine rack for scissors. There would be no risk of getting caught and punished anymore. Instead, there would be a myriad of unknown threats—animals or humans, or something that didn't fit in neither category. I now had Mary Eunice to protect, too, not just myself.

The hallways, as I treaded down, reflected the outside atmosphere in a way. Eerily tranquil. I could hear inmates' screams in a distance, but the resident staff seemed to stay in their rooms. My breathing was the loudest noise, my footsteps the second. I didn't hear anything else.

As I walked down _Stairway to Heaven,_ the door nearby swung open.

"Miss Winters."

The faintest whisper froze my feet in the middle of the stairs.

And again the voice came. "Wait." It was Mary Eunice, her steps wobbly as she fixed her duffle bag on her shoulder.

I shushed her. I met her halfway to take the bag from her. But then, she hesitated to follow me.

"I'll be back," she said, and walked back up the stairs.

"No, Mary Eunice, no!" I tried to catch her by the hem of her coat, but she slipped away like smoke.

Her figure disappeared behind the door, leaving me with her giant bag. I began to panic. Expletives threatened to burst out of my throat, as I sprinted down to the first floor and managed to hide myself in the shadow under the stairs. I felt my palms began to sweat. I even dared to hate Mary for this.—The moment I thought she was the most loyal, docile girl, she would turn into the most unpredictable one with a wild heart. Although such surprises delighted me under usual circumstances, this did nothing but shorten my life-span.

I took one shaky breath, and decided we could meet downstairs, like I'd told her. But, when I stepped out of the shadow, I heard another set of footsteps getting closer.

"Who's there?" A deep voice of a man came from the floor above. He stopped.

I sneaked back into the shadow and, as I clutched the bag to my chest, stopped breathing.

Despite all my effort, however, he stayed put, as if waiting for me to run out of oxygen, or for my heart to jump out of my mouth.—I couldn't die here. I couldn't be caught here. I could only blame Mary Eunice for this.

His heels started to click on the floor again. His stride had canny deliberation in it, like that of a carnivore on a hunt, confident of its skills. The darkness around me gained thickness, as adrenaline clouded my mind. I braced myself, hoping the bag would be hefty enough to knock him unconscious.

But then, another door opened, and the beast stopped moving. There echoed several quick steps, followed by a gasp.

"Oh, Dr. Arden— You gave me quite a fright," Mary said.

Arden! I would definitely not have survived if he'd caught me.—But, now my hands sweated for Mary.

"Sister." His voice suddenly became sweet. "I assumed you'd be asleep by now considering your busy schedule tomorrow."

"I'm too nervous. I'm— I wanted to pray in the chapel for the last time."

"Allow me to accompany you, then," he said.

I couldn't tell if it was a result of his suspicion or his clingy affection. Either way, it was annoying and dangerous.

They now kept their voices low. I strained my ears, and barely caught Mary saying she hoped to be alone. They exchanged more hushed words. After a nervous giggle, Mary descended the stairs at last, with no footsteps following her. When she got to the foot of the stairs, she stopped there. I craned my neck, and saw her looking up, as she waved at Arden. His footsteps grew distant above us. In a few seconds, there was a faint click of a door being shut. I think Mary and I both heaved a sigh of relief together.

"Miss Winters?" She looked around.

I came out of the shadow, took her hand, and ran to the basement. Impatience and fright hurled in my stomach, quickened my steps a little. But there was no other way to get these frustrations out of my system. Her questionable judgment couldn't be our top priority now.

We made it through the secret passage in silence. The air stung my skin, harder than I had expected. The whiteness of my breath blocked part of my view, as I stood where I had been many nights ago. I looked into the darkness, towards the woods before us. I made sure I had the scissors in my pocket. Mary pulled a coat—shorter, but thicker than the one on me—out of her bag.

"We can't go in there," she said, and came to put the coat on me.

"My car is hidden somewhere near the gate. We need to find it."

So, we turned our backs on the creatures. We scuttled across the driveway. The patter of our footsteps soared to the open sky, and bounced off the walls of Briarcliff. I looked back many times, because I thought somebody was after us.

"Do you remember where you parked?" she asked, when we passed the front gate.

I told her no. "But there was a part of the wall that was wrecked nearby. I totally forgot about it. I climbed up there."

"The dismantled wall?" she said. "I know where it is." Then this time, she took the lead in our quest.

As we trotted, panting, I feared the creatures might jump out of the bushes. But Mary seemed unruffled—as unruffled as she could be in the middle of the grand escape. I concluded that those creatures only lived in the one particular spot of the woods, Arden's garden in the back of Briarcliff. The realization made the walk a little bit tolerable, less tormenting. One less morbid fear.

After walking along the wall for a minute or two, we found the pile of bricks in question.

Mary looked around. "Do you see it?"

I didn't. I tried to reach back into my memory, but all I could recall was the flame of ambition I'd had that night. Eagerness to reveal everything that was Briarcliff.

"I think—" I said. "I don't remember taking any drastic turns. So, if we just go straight ahead . . ."

Although they were my own words, I couldn't wipe away my doubts. The car was our biggest hope, the key to our freedom. But we couldn't invest much of our precious time in searching for it. So, when the moonlight filtered through the branches and shed light on the familiar frame of my car, I let out a yelp of joy. We ran towards it, as though the mere sight rejuvenated us.

I threw myself on the hood, brushing off the dead leaves and dirt.

"Your car is pretty," Mary said.

"She's the most beautiful girl in the world." I stroked the silver cold metal, as I walked to the door to the driver's seat. But then, I looked at the seat behind the glass, and the hard truth hit me. "I don't have the key." I turned to look at Mary.

"The key?"

"The key . . . Without the key, it's a useless chunk of metal," I said. I thrust my fist against the car. "For fuck's sake, why hasn't this occurred to me?!"

Mary crouched down, and took something out of her bag. Her eyes, when she looked up, lacked disappointment or a tone of accusation. There was just mild uncertainty. "Here— These are the clothes you were wearing that night," she said, as she held a medium-sized package out to me. "Is the key somewhere in it?"

I gawked down at the package. "When did you—?"

She bit her bottom lip. "After meeting you in the entrance hall."

"You went back for my clothes?"

"I know you are upset. You have every right to be," she said. "But, I hated to see you leave without your pin."

"My what?"

Her cheeks colored. "Your L pin. The one from Miss Wendy."

She rendered me at an absolute loss of words. She saw me like this, then mumbled something about it being really important to me.

I forced a smile, and gave her a simple 'thank you.' Now was not a good time to immerse ourselves in sentimentality. I opened the package. My jacket and dress lay in a pile. I found the key, unlocked the door, and got in, beckoning her to do the same. The steering wheel felt like glacial ice. A layer of frost coated the windshield. As she climbed into the passenger's seat, I turned on the ignition.—But the engine wouldn't start, or even crank. I tried again, and again, and yet, only sheer silence answered.

"What's wrong with it?" she said.

None of the lights would turn on, either.

"The battery is dead," I said. I rested my forehead on the wheel. _The battery is fucking dead._ "Of course, it's dead. It's been months. What did I fucking expect?"

"Maybe, there's something we can do?"

"No, the battery is dead." My hand hit the wheel with each syllable. "The battery is like the heart of a car. If it doesn't move, neither does the car. It's dead!" My voice quivered.

I wanted to cry, more than ever. I wanted to just disappear. Because things couldn't get any worse, because I actually had gotten my hopes up, because these hopes blinded me, because my brain turned out to be a useless blob of jelly meat. All this time, I'd told myself everything would work out once we got outside.

"I'm so sorry," I said. "I'm so fucking useless right now."

Mary put her hand on my back. "This is not the end, Miss Winters. The car might be broken, but we are not." She got off the car. "We can walk. Please, walk with me."

Leaving my beloved car was, even to put it mildly, lamentable, especially when I knew I couldn't come back any time soon. There was my bag in the backseat. It had my wallet, cigarettes, notebook, and other things I'd forgotten I even had in it. And I rummaged through the car, as a form of farewell, and managed to scrape about fifty cents worth of coins.


	24. Chapter 24

After finding the road, we took turns in carrying the baggage. My muscles, after months of lethargic confinement, began to scream in pain almost too soon. What was more, the cold got me on pins and needles in every part of my body. Yet, as time passed all the pain faded away.—I hoped that my body had simply warmed up enough, and not become numb. I had read stories about people getting frost bitten and having to cut off their affected body parts. The sole thought of it made my _inside_ shiver.

For a long time, neither of us dared to let out a word, or to slow down. We kept going forward. As far from Briarcliff as possible, before Jude's eyes opened. We solely concentrated all of our energies on it. Sometimes, I would steal a glance at her. Her moonlit face would always be contorted, as though tears might spurt from her eyes at any moment. It might have been just due to the harsh weather. But to me, she looked like a lost child. Even her white breath seemed to whirl in misery. I couldn't ask if she regretted this, afraid of the answer.

We saw no other shadows whatsoever, not even when the road met a bigger one. It was when our march stopped for the first time. We looked left and right. Under the shroud of night, both of the paths seemed to lead to darkness. Mary looked at me, asking me which way to go.

"The town I always go to for Dr. Arden's errands is that way," she said, as she pointed to the right.

"I came from this way." I pointed to the other side. "The nearest town is about fifteen miles away."

Mary chose that path without hesitation.

The road was better-paved, compared to the one we had just walked on, with steadier side roads. The downside was, we no longer had bushes, barriers to protect ourselves from the breeze. And if a car appeared now, the veil of the darkness would lose its power against the headlights. The driver could be a friend, could be a foe. When our safety—our lives—depended on this escape, we could not take such a gamble. I could only hope we wouldn't meet anyone on the way.

"Miss Winters, where are we going?" Mary said. The question was vague, but I knew she meant our final destination.

"I don't know," I said. "My friend's house, maybe."

"Maybe— We should go to Miss Wendy. She surely can help us." There was undeniable hint of hope in her voice, and in the way she said her name. The faith that I was supposed to have but didn't.

I had thought about going home, many times. After all, this was all I ever wanted, to go back to Wendy, to start my life over with her. Mary knew this more than anyone else. But, things had changed since then. Now that I was actually outside the walls of Briarcliff, I could act on those wishes.—That idea of infinite possibilities terrified me. Every time I thought about Wendy, I couldn't help but fear that she might betray me again, help Jude put me in solitary again. My heart wouldn't be able to take it if it ever happened. It would destroy me. I wanted to believe in her. I wanted to count on her. I just didn't know if it was the right choice to make.

"She can, can't she?" Mary looked into my face.

 _God, it's so freezing._

"We shouldn't walk and talk at the same time," I said.

The moon had moved significantly in the sky.—We must have walked more than four miles. Then, we saw a small blurry dot of light in a distance. It grew bigger, more vibrant, as we got closer. I didn't remember anything being in the middle of nowhere, and I definitely did not remember seeing a motel on my way. But that was what it was. A cheap motel with a bright, pink electric sign.

"Oh, look!" Mary pointed ahead. "A payphone."

It stood on the border between the road and the motel's property. The interior light made a constant buzzing sound, flickering, on the brink of death. A piece of gum was stuck to the top surface of the phone. I piled up my coins near the gum, and inserted one of them. But, with the receiver next to my ear, my finger just hovered over the numbers.

Mary made a tiny noise next to me, then. I glanced at her, and found her grimacing at me.

"It's a little . . . out of order," she said, as her index finger pointed at the receiver.—The bottom half of it was missing, naked cords and wires dangling. More than just out of order, I'd say.

Oh, what a night! Nothing seemed to go in favor of us, as if it was the curse of Briarcliff Manor. I put down the phone. The coin dropped in the change slot, the metallic sound too piercing in the stillness of the night.

Mary bit her lip, as she looked towards the motel. "Maybe, they can help . . ." Her voice trailed off.

We both shared reluctance at the idea, but knew equally that we had no other option. As we entered, the warm air caressed my face. I felt my cheeks buzz in the soft heat.

It was a motel alright. The problem was, we found nobody at the front desk. The desk lamp, the only source of light in the room, flickered many times. It gave some creepy liveliness to the hunting trophy of a stag above it. Mary tugged at my sleeve, and pointed at a black telephone behind that lamp. I pressed down on the desk bell. Nobody answered. I called out, but still no response came. This time, I slammed my palm on the bell, twice, nearly rendering myself deaf. Mary took my hand and clung to me, like a scared little girl that she was. It was then I took notice of the veil on her head.

"Take that off," I said. "It makes you stand out."

As she did so, I heard some movement in the room behind the desk.

A fat, hairy lumberjack came out. "I heard you the first time," he said, pulling up his jeans. He turned on the radio at the corner of the room. The station played country music.

"Sorry to bother you in the middle of the night," I said. "We were just wondering if we could borrow your phone, and the Yellow Pages."

But his eyes seemed barely open. He held a clock right in front of his face, while scratching his stubbled chin. "Three in the morning," he said under his breath. "You gotta be kidding me."

 _Then you shouldn't keep your sign on and door open._

Mary took a small step back, and hid behind me.

I made an apologetic pretense. "We are very sorry if we disturbed your sleep, sir, but we really do need to make a phone call."

He studied us, from head to toe. "Didn't you see the payphone right outside?"

"We did. It was broken," I said. "Please, sir. It's very important to us."

"We ain't provide that kind of service to non-customers," he said.

He looked too exhausted to take any shit.—Well, the joke was on him, because I felt quite the same.

"What's the big deal? It's just a phone call. It's not going to take all night." I felt Mary pull at my sleeve, but my gaze remained on the guy. "I'm not asking to use it for free. I'll pay. But only for the phone call. If you think we'd get a room just to use your fucking phone, you're insane. And I know a lot of insane people."

He scrunched his face up. "Do I need to call the police?" he said.

I winced at the thought. The situation was already disastrous enough. Although the help of the police would benefit us later, their involvement at this point would only make the matter more complicated. In the worst case scenario, they would be our adversaries.

"No, no, please, we only need help," Mary said. "We'll get a room. How much is it?"

"Four."

"Four? We don't want a goddamn suite," I said, and Mary gave a chiding pull at my arm.

"That includes an inconvenient fee, lady."

Without protest, Mary pulled out a little pouch, and handed him a bill. A twenty-dollar bill, without any fold marks, wrinkles, rips, or ink smudges. New as though straight out of the mint.

I looked at Mary, and at the guy. The expression on my face must have mirrored his. He gawked at the bill with his mouth agape. His bear-like hand moved slowly towards it, as though he felt uncertain to reach over the counter. And then, after examining the texture between his thumb and index finger, he held it up to the light. His gaze studied Mary's attire again. He complained about it being big money, but didn't reject it. Although his bitterness lingered, the hostility seemed to have dissolved. I could hear his inner voice, as he regretted not charging us more.

With the room key, we stepped outside once again. Mary walked, checking the numbers on the doors.

"Where'd you get the money?" I asked her.

Her fingers played with the key. "I don't think you want to know . . ."

"Did you steal it?"

"God, no!" she said. "It was a farewell gift from Dr. Arden— Please, don't make that face. He just wanted me to have a safe trip."

"A safe, extravagant trip."

I felt positive that the money had blood on it, regardless the superficial cleanness. It couldn't be free of illegality, as it came from him. But, like it or not, his creepy affection saved the day yet again, hopefully for the last time.

We found our room at the far end of the one-story building. A heating system didn't exist here, contrary to the reception room the lumberjack slept in. The ceiling lights didn't turn on. The bed lamp between the two twin-sized beds _did_ turn on, but had a huge coffee stain on the lampshade. The smells of cheap perfumes, cigarette smoke, and mold stuck to every fabric, and their laundry detergent only added a superficial freshness to the fusion.

Mary stood in the center, abhorred as she looked around. "Oh, dear Lord, is that a shoe print?" She grimaced at the ceiling.

And indeed, there was a clear shoe print just above the bed close to the bathroom.

"He fucking ripped us off, and this is the room we get?" I said. "I bet this is the crappiest room they have."

She sat on a bed, careful not to stir up dust. Her shoulders trembled. She wrapped her arms around her body. Her shoes had countless scratches among specks of dried dirt. I saw a slit in her left stocking, just above her ankle, and blood-stained skin peeked from beneath the sheer fabric.

"You are hurt." I gestured to the injury.

She bent oneself forward, and furrowed her brows slightly. "Oh— I assumed my legs were simply getting tired."

I remembered the existence of the roll of bandage in my pocket. I pulled it out along with the scissors, setting them down next to her.

She picked up the bandage. "Where did you get them?"

"I don't think you want to know." I said.

"Did you steal them from the infirmary?"

"Yeah." I felt my lips curl into a smirk. "Though, I had something more violent in my mind, like tying someone up and stabbing them."

Then, I made her take the stocking off. I crouched down by the bed, and with her foot on my lap, I examined the injury. The entire time, the shivering of her body never ceased.

"It's not deep. Mostly blood," I said. "You should take a hot shower. It'll refresh you. And we'll tend to this." I let go, and walked in the bathroom.

"But, what about the phone call?" she said.

"I'll take care of it. Don't worry."

I ran the water, and adjusted the temperature until it was warm. It wasn't hot, but still felt searing to the frigid hand of mine, seeping in my bones. I felt tempted to soak my feet in it, too.

Over the sound of spattering water, I heard her say, "Who are you going to call?"

I watched the water spiral down the plug hole. A long hair was stuck in the miniscule crack on the edge of the hole, swirling as it refused to let go. Then, it came to me that I no longer had to live by Jude's strict rules. My own life had returned to me, in my hands. I could live the way I used to.

I walked back into the bedroom, and pulled my notebook out.

"Got everyone's contact information in here," I said to Mary. I flipped through the pages, skimming through, for someone trustworthy, someone who would care about me even in the middle of the night. "Barbara Everett." I tapped my finger on the name. "My best friend. I used to stay at her place whenever Wendy and I had a huge fight."

Mary took a peep at it. "Aren't you going to call Miss Wendy?"

I hesitated. "No."

"Why? Don't you think you should?"

"It's— It's unsafe to contact her at this point. When Jude finds out about me in the morning, she will think of my house before any place."

"You have a point, I suppose."

I slid off the bed. I gestured towards the bathroom. "The shower. I'll be back soon."

"But—" she said, when I reached for the door knob. "She'll have to be worried when Sister Jude tells her you're missing. Don't you think so? You could just give her a call, and—"

"No. It's better if she doesn't know anything."

"But, I think, if I were her, I would want to know that you're safe."

"Well, but you're not."

She looked down. Her eyelashes fluttered, as if she was blinking her tears away. "I know I'm not. But I know she would want to hear your voice. Even just a—"

"No, you know nothing, Mary Eunice. You understand nothing," I said. "She sold me out. We swore to protect each other, but she sold me out. It happened, and it's never going to change. This— This fear is always going to be part of me."

"But, you wanted to see her again," she said. "All this time, when you told me about her, didn't you wish to be with her again?"

I remained silent.

"Miss Winters—"

"We shouldn't waste our time like this."

"Give her a second chance. You gave it to me—" Her voice sounded so frail, as the door closed shut between us.

At the front desk, the languid melody of country music still wafted through the air. But, it seemed like the mean bear had gone back to his bed. The faint sound of his snores came from the backroom, vibrating the walls. I called out. I thought his snores got louder. I pulled the telephone closer, then, and opened my notebook. But even as I located my friend's number, the shadow of self-doubt lingered in my chest. I flipped a page, and another, eventually coming back to the first choice. Still— _Is this the right choice?_ My stomach felt as if it had a huge stone in it. The words of Mary echoed in my head over and over again, and I found myself burying my head in my hands.

Then, the song on the radio ended. The radio host spoke in a dull tone, reflective of the night's air. He talked about the weather, the traffic on the highways, and at the end said, "Merry Christmas, everyone." The words did not make sense to me at first. I stared at the radio for some moments. And when a Christmas song came on, it dawned on me at last. It was Christmas tonight. Time had passed so much in the world without me.

It was Christmas.

So, I closed the notebook, and dialed the only number I knew by heart.

"Hello?" The voice on the other side of the phone sounded sleepy. "Who is this?" she said.

I imagined her tilting her head, with the receiver between her ear and her shoulder. I imagined her scrunching her face up, as she rubbed her eye. Perhaps she wore her favorite green nightgown tonight, or her flowery pajamas. There might be plastic curlers in her hair. It might be her sleep-with-a-face-mask-on day. I couldn't tell any of these over the phone. But, I didn't have to see to know her feet must be cold, even with the protection of her fuzzy slippers. Her feet were always cold.

"Hello?" she said again, and I choked up for words.


	25. Chapter 25

**Warning** (as requested lol): the future chapters, most of them, will have some part that might make you cry. better not to read in public mayb :/ wut are tears tho. what i can say is that there are more Hardcore!Emotional chapters than chapters with mild sentimentality.

* * *

Mary stood in the room. She looked up, and I supposed my puffy eyes gave it away, as she came to me with fretful steps. Her hands felt warm and a bit damp now.

"I called Wendy," I said. "She should be here in an hour."

She rested her hand on her crucifix, as she let out a sigh. "Good," she said. "Good. How did she sound? Was she okay?"

"We didn't speak that much. I just asked her to come pick us up."

Then, I cast a glance at the things spread across one of the beds. There lay my dress, unwrinkled, waiting to be worn. With my little L pin glimmering in the dim light, it radiated the glory of a queen's gown.

"I forgot to take your shoes. I'm sorry," Mary said.

I looked down at my worn-out shoes. I allowed myself to laugh. "I'll let Jude keep them. They're probably the only decent shoes in that house."

She ducked her head. Her giggles escaped her tight lips.

I looked down again, and saw that she had bandage on the cut.

"Hey," I said, as I took her hand. "Thank you, for the clothes, for Wendy. For everything. Even if I don't like what you do sometimes, you always seem to know what's best for me."

Her cheeks grew pink. "I try, but— I'm not as selfless as you think me to be."

"I've told you before, Mary Eunice, you're too harsh on yourself."

She bit her lip, and murmured something I couldn't hear.

After getting my limbs warm in the shower, I changed into the dress. Mary helped to zipped me up, and as I turned around, she sort of stood there in silence. I thought she was looking at the smears of dirt on it.

I tried to pat them clean. "I must've gotten these when they caught me," I said. "Do you think it's better to keep the hospital gown on?"

"Absolutely not. That hideous thing— You look fine. Very fine."

She looked at me like I was royal, like the dress was a ball-gown. The blatant admiration made me tickle inside.

"Just—" she said, "thinking about the first time we met." Her smile looked the tenderest I had ever seen.

.

Then, we shared the sandwich Kit had given me. She would cover her mouth with every other bite, her brows pulled together. At first, I suspected the cheese had gone bad. But when her eyes twinkled, I realized she was trying to suppress her yawns. Although I suggested she take a nap, she only shook her head.

She yawned again. "I can't do that when you're exhausted, too. It won't be fair."

"Care about efficiency instead of fairness."

She gave me another stubborn head-shake, quite like a small child.

"Fine," I said. "You'll sleep for thirty minutes." I put our pocket watch on the nightstand. "And the remaining thirty minutes is for my sleep. Does that sound fair enough?"

She nodded at last and crawled under the blanket. Her eyes closed as soon as her head sunk in the pillow. But within a second, she cracked them open again.

"You won't go anywhere, right?" she said.

Not like I'd done on the snowy night, she meant.

"No, I'll be here when you wake up."

This seemed to satisfy her, then. She smiled and nodded. And I found myself being awed by her faith in me yet again. After all the betrayal and cruelty, all she needed was my words of reassurance. Just a simple promise. Nothing more. If I were her, it wouldn't be enough, and for that, I admired her.

She yawned under the cover. "Do you think Miss Wendy will like me?" she said, like a child on the night before her first day of school.

"Of course. We have the same taste in people."

"What do you mean?"

I smiled. "It means that she will like you, because I like you."

She pulled the blankets to hide her face. But with her eyes crinkling, I knew there was a grin underneath.

"Go to sleep," I said.

She nodded. "Promise that you will wake me up after thirty minutes."

"Scout's honor."

She wiggled under the cover some more. Then, when she saw me looking at her, she bit her lip and rolled over onto her other side, her back facing me.

While she slept, I jotted down everything that I could remember about my days at Briarcliff. All the names I'd learned, of inmates and staff, all the excuses Jude had used, all the mockery and abuse. Everything I would write in my articles and books. Everything people had to hear, see, and feel. I didn't want to stop my pen, or stop to take a deep breath. I had a harassing feeling that, the moment I did so, someone might barge in and snatch the notes away from me. By the time my cigarette case became empty, the notebook only had a few blank pages left.—Not once did I care to check the time.

Then, I heard a car outside. I rushed to the window, and peeked out through a gap in the curtains. The car stopped almost in front of our room, parked in a way that disregarded the parking lot lines. The headlights almost cast a spotlight on my window, and on me behind the curtains. Its engine kept purring. I swallowed. Despite the engine sound, in that moment, I felt like whoever out there could hear the drumming of my heart. It was then that a person stepped out of the vehicle. The beams of blinding headlights hid the figure behind them. When the person came between the lights and me, I saw that the shadow was getting closer. Their face was still part of the dark. But I recognized the gait, and the shape of her hips.

Without waiting for a knock on the door, I opened it, just a crack. The first thing I saw was her flowery purple pajamas. Then I saw white breath whirling in front of her face, chiseled and a little masculine, and those familiar dark eyes. We stood there for a moment, with the artlessness of two strangers meeting for the first time.

Wendy pushed the door open. And as she stepped in, her arms pulled me into a hug, in the smell of her cherry blossom perfume. Her nose, buried in my neck, was cold just like the rest of her body. She trembled. She held onto me even harder. And when she pulled away, she kissed me just as hard. I felt her warmth, felt her breath, felt her rhythm—the being of her, and it all gathered the missing fragments of me in my essence. I then remembered what it was like. My life. Her fingers stroked my cheeks, retrieving red heat to the surface. She said something in my mouth, over and over again. I didn't need to ask. I tasted her tears.

"I'm sorry, Lana. I'm so sorry." She buried her face in my hair again.

I just nodded.

"I love you. I should never have let you go. I'm so sorry."

I nodded again.

Then, she pulled away all of a sudden. She wiped her face in haste, her lips tight. Her eyes almost glared, as she looked towards the room. I followed her gaze, and found Mary Eunice standing by the bed. She tried to smile, but her cheeks only had a spasm. She held her hand down with the other, trying not to fiddle with her crucifix.

I introduced them to each other.

"Very pleased to meet you, ma'am," Mary said.

But Wendy had the same expression as the lumberjack guy at the reception. She examined Mary's appearance, and gave me a look.

"She's a nun." She didn't even bother to whisper.

"She's my friend," I said. "I told you on the phone I wasn't alone."

"Lana, are you out of your mind? She's one of the people that locked you away."

I couldn't deny that her words hurt me. I held my head up. "I'm definitely not out of my mind, Wendy. I've been trying not to go nuts for the past two months."

She faltered. "I didn't mean to—"

"She is a nun, but not like the other ones."

I glanced at Mary, and sure enough, I found her hanging her head. She looked like a child, beaten and shaken, in the face of a relentless reprimand. But she still tried, even with her trembling shoulders, not to let loose a sob.

"I was more than happy to help your friend when you called." Wendy ran her fingers through her hair. "But I never expected her to be _what she is_."

"She helped me escape," I said. "If it wasn't for her, I would've died and nobody would've cared. And she was the one that suggested me calling you. She— She had more faith in you than I did, okay? We are here because of her."

Her attitude softened, although the skepticism remained between her brows. She looked me in the eye, and I think she saw my resolution, that nothing would make me leave without Mary.

"Fine," she said at last, and gestured with her hands. "Let's go home."

I helped a still shaking Mary with her baggage, giving her hand a squeeze. We walked to the car together. She sat in the backseat with the bag, and I in the passenger's seat. The engine vroomed once, before the car returned to the road. It was a poorly-maintained, old road, with bumps and cracks disturbing the drive the whole time. That and the vibration of the engine worked in tandem, and irritated my wounds in the ass. I had to pinch my thigh to distract myself from the incessant pain.

"Are you feeling sick?" Wendy said. "Do you want me to pull over?"

"No, I'm— Keep driving. I'm not carsick."

I focused on the road ahead of us, all the yellow lines that came and went back to back. We drove over a pothole again. I felt a chill in the neck and forehead, as beads of cold sweat began to cover my skin. I wanted to roll down the window for fresh air, but in the relative dark, I couldn't figure out how.

"Who's car is this?" I asked.

"Mine. I bought it," Wendy said, with her eyes trained on the road. "You took our car, and . . . I didn't know where it was."

"Sorry. It's in the woods, but the engine's dead. I won't be able to get it back soon."

"Don't apologize. I—" Then, all of a sudden, her face contorted. "The car's not important. I thought I couldn't even get you back. I was so stupid." Her voice shook, as her breathing grew erratic. "I tried to go there, you know, to get you out. Many times I did. But I'd always stop when I saw the gate, because I was scared shitless you might push me away. I was scared to death that I might see nothing but hate and contempt in your eyes. But— Oh, God, it shouldn't have taken this long for me to realize what an idiot I am."

The car tilted to one side again, as we drove over something.

"We don't have to do this right now, baby."

"Yes, we do." She took a slow breath. "I'm the stupidest idiot, Lana, for comparing my pathetic fears to what you were going through. But I couldn't fucking see that until Sister Jude told me you were dead."

I stirred in my seat. "Dead? What are you talking about?"

"I went to see Sister Jude. This afternoon. But she told me you had died last week, and that they had no obligation to tell me. I asked to see your body, or your grave. She said they had cremated you—"

"I'm confused— They don't practice cremation."

"I know," she said, wiping her nose with her hand. "But they said that the sin was deep in your bones, and couldn't just bury you. And I believed them. I was so angry, but I couldn't do anything. And now— You—" She let out a sob, just once, and seemed to regain her focus on the drive.

I turned around to look at Mary in the back. She drew her brows together, as perplexed as I was.

"She said I was dead?" I said. "Why?"

Wendy shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know. All she said was that you died of some infection."

Then, clarity came to me, the mystery unfolding before my eyes.

"It was yesterday afternoon, you said?" I said.

Wendy gave a nod. Everything made sense now. The drastic change in Jude's behavior, during her last visit to the infirmary in the evening prior, seemed quite reasonable now. Her frenetic words, the telltale signs of agitation, the tremor in her voice that I'd only considered as the result of physical fatigue. I understood, then, why Rose seemed so reluctant to talk to Jude in front of me at the stairs.— _The visitor_ Rose wanted to inform Jude of, it was Wendy.

"She was going to put me in the solitary tomorrow," I said. "That old bitch. She knew what she was doing."

Jude couldn't stand to see the proof of her lie still sitting in bed. I was a free woman by her definition. She had to get rid of me, so the world would never learn about her self-serving lies.

"She lied to me," Wendy said.

"Through her teeth."

"Why would she do that? I mean, aren't they Christians?"

"Once you live there, you'll see that those commandments are nothing but a mask. They are ugly people, under the piousness and fidelity. Uglier than the people they call sinners. Us."

"But, faking a death . . . It sounds extreme," she said.

I remembered the fear in the eyes of Jude, the way she walked around the infirmary. Those were the eyes of a person who feared for her life.

"I don't think she had another choice," I said. "She saw that threatening you no longer worked. But she couldn't just let you sign the paper and let me go."

Wendy didn't speak for a moment. "What are you going to do now?" she said eventually.

Now, that was a million-dollar question. I thought about it, as if it had never occurred to me in the past two months.

"I'd go to the police tomorrow," I said. "And I would fight, until I burn down that sickening institution and collect every bit of Jude's ashes."

I looked back at Mary again. I expected to see enthusiasm on her face, or at least, something like support. But she only looked outside the window, with her eyes hollow. I wondered what those eyes saw. Her reflection, or something that didn't exist there. She really looked like an orphaned child now.

Wendy sighed. "Do you have a cigarette?"

I said no. "I smoked them all."

"Right," she said. "There's a bunch in stock at home."


	26. Chapter 26

The town illuminated with Christmas decorations. Light chains of warm colors connected the trees and light poles above our heads. Snowflake-shaped lightings hung from each of the light poles. As we drove through, I could almost hear music. Actual Christmas music, not the spooky one they played at Briarcliff. Despite the absence of the sun, the downtown looked so lively. If it hadn't been in the middle of the night, there might've been some people walking around, too, all bundled up and excited for the holidays. There was a tall Christmas tree right in front of the courthouse. It stood with grandeur,as if it knew how proud it made its people. And, as if I had never seen it before, the magnificence of it left me in awe.

We drove more. I looked at the houses in the neighborhood, with their decorations on their rooftops and front porches. There were people in them, fast asleep, oblivious to my sentimentality. And I saw one house, in this bright neighborhood, that had no decorations at all. Wendy parked the car in the driveway of the house.

I twisted my waist in the seat. "Mary Eunice, we are here."

Mary rubbed her eyes, and stretched once. I helped her out of the car, and into the house. I wanted to welcome Mary with open arms, giving her a tour to make her feel at home. But instead, as we crossed the threshold, I could only stand there with her, as if I was another guest. Everything in the house gave off uneasy unfamiliarity. My feet refused to take the first step. In the distinctive smell of the house, I smelled whiskey. Mary's shoulder brushed against mine, then. Her hand sought mine, asking to be held. And I saw the misgivings in her pleading eyes, the anxiety about the genuine unfamiliarity she felt, in the house she had never been in. It was enough for me. I could be courageous for her, just like this.

"Come on," I said. "I'll show you the bedroom."

As we walked through the hallway, she kept looking around. Her stare flew from one thing to another, as though anything could hurt her. She had never looked so small.

I entered the room and put her bag on the bed. "This is the guest room. The bathroom is down the hall. Our bedroom is right on the other side of this wall." I put my hand flat against the wall that touched the headboard of the bed. "If you need anything, that's where you could find me."

She nodded, and looked about.

"It's a little dusty in here, isn't it?" I said. I opened the window. "I'll go get a heater for you, and more blankets."

And at last, she opened her mouth. "No, it's alright. This is so much better than what I had at—" She looked down, feeling the bedsheets. "Thank you. You have a lovely house."

But despite her smile, she looked sad.

"Have some rest," I said. "Or, are you hungry? Thirsty? Do you want to take a bath?"

She shook her head at all of my questions. "I just—" A faint sigh escaped her lips, and her hand rose to rub her eye. "I just need to sleep. I'm very tired."

"Okay. We'll talk tomorrow."

I bade her goodnight, and left the room.

Then finally, I settled down in the bedroom of Wendy and me. For the first time that night, I closed my eyes without any fear. The well-cushioned mattress swallowed my whole body as I lay down. And in that moment, I think, it sank in that I had escaped the imprisonment of Briarcliff. No more bedbugs, none of the smell of filth, no screams, no shivering in the cold. This was a quiet neighborhood in a medium-sized town, and this house was mine. I was at home.

Wendy insisted on feeding me. She bathed me, helped me change into my nightgown, wrapped me up in blankets, combed my hair, put lotion on my arid skin. Everything I merely glanced at, she brought it in front of me. Her care was pure devotion. After weeks of neglect, the vigor of it made me feel like a royalty or a saint. And I would have made a joke or two about it, if it wasn't for her incessant sobs that only exacerbated by the second. Her lips quivered, as she kissed the back of my hand, and the inside of my wrist. I cupped her cheek, and more tears wet my hands.

"There are," she said, "so many things I want to say to you."

"I know. I do, too." I planted a kiss on her fluttering eyelid. "But not tonight, baby. It's been a long night for everyone."

She nodded, and took some more moments to calm down.

I patted for her to lie with me. "Come be the big spoon."

"You let me be the big spoon?"

"Only tonight."

She crawled under the blankets, wrapped her arms around my waist, pressing her nose into the back of my neck. I melted in the warmth. Her grip tightened more, as though having two separate bodies pained her. But it was too tight, and her hip bones dug into my rear end. I hissed and wiggled away.

She made a little space between us. "Sorry. Did I hurt you?"

"It's not you. I— I just have some nasty wounds in the ass," I said. And I was thankful, when she didn't ask further questions.

Instead, she pressed her lips to my neck, once, and moved to my shoulder. The heat of her breath caressed my skin. I felt it tremble. I think I did, too. She made me roll over, and climbed on top of me. Her fingers flirted with the hem of my gown for a moment, and when her hand touched my stomach, the buzzing heat made me shiver again.

"Baby."

"I just want to touch you," she said in my ear, and left a kiss there. "I need to feel you. I need to know I'm not dreaming."

"Mary Eunice is sleeping in the next room."

Then we just had to keep quiet, she said.

We were no strangers to reckless passion or smoldering touches. But what we had tonight, we had never had it before. I didn't know the name of it, or if it ever had a name. It just sowed something in me, a feeling so heavy, hot, and dense. It made me feel like I was drowning. It felt like flying.

I didn't want to do this in order to climax. Setting such goals felt like the opposite of what I needed in the moment. All I craved was to feel her body, to make sure of my own existence through the heat, through the heaviness of the air, through the sound of her breathing, through her. And I think she understood that, even though I never told her. Her fingers glided across my body, tracing each bone that protruded like rugged mountains. She moved against me, and kissed me, until I couldn't any more.

ooOooOoo

Rationally, I understood that I was in my house. The little ol' house, built in the forties, that Wendy and I had bought together. Still, this sense of restlessness didn't seem to leave with the dawn, and stayed deep under my skin. Everything felt so small. The ceiling was low, the rooms were confined, the walls seemed fragile. I found myself comparing those things with what Briarcliff had. And breathing became harder, once I realized that Briarcliff had a sort of openness. The whole building might have been filthy, but the ceilings were twice as high. And the skylight in the entrance hall, my house didn't have that. How ironic that my own house made me feel so claustrophobic. Briarcliff, without my knowing it, had permeated, touched the quick of me.

I stood by the window in the morning, with a cup of hot coffee in my hands. The clock read past eleven. Kit might be working in the bakery at this moment.—Or, maybe, my escape might be turning the entire institution into chaos, and leaving the daily routines in shambles. Jude might be swinging her canes around in wrath. Sánchez might be stomping his feet, having failed to see me dead. And Arden might be crying over Mary and plotting revenge on me. I hoped none of them would ever take it out on Kit, or his family.

I turned around, and nearly spilled the coffee when I saw Mary Eunice there, sleeping in the couch. The mountain of blankets moved up and down slightly with her quiet breathing. The thickest blanket on the very top had slid off her, and now only covered her legs. In the remaining blankets she had her nose buried. I placed myself on the coffee table before her. Even in her sleep, she had her brows drawn together. The heater in the living room was off.—At whatever point during the night she had moved here, she must have shivered herself to sleep. I picked up the thick blankets off the floor. But when she felt the weight of the cover on her upper body, she jerked awake. She sat up. All the blankets fell on the floor with one bulky thud.

Overnight, a white nightgown had replaced her black habit. The blonde hair that she'd had pinned up now cascaded down around her shoulders. Her bangs were in a mess, going this way and that.

"Why were you sleeping here?" I said.

She rubbed her eyes, looked about, and forced a smile. "I must've mistaken this for my bed after I went to the bathroom last night."

 _Who goes to the bathroom with a whole set of blankets?_ But I chose to ignore that. I asked her if she'd had a good sleep, and she lied again with a tired smile.

"Good," I said, "You have to be starving. Let's have breakfast."

I went to the kitchen and put bagels in the toaster. As I prepared plates, Mary stood next to me, watching.

"Is Miss Wendy still in bed?"

"No, she went grocery shopping." I took a sip from my mug. "Do you want coffee?"

I let her pick a mug for herself. She admitted she'd never had coffee before, but still insisted on having it instead of tea. We sat together then, and ate late breakfast. Although my stomach still acted up, it gave me joy to have anything that wasn't the watery mashed potatoes.

Mary seemed content, too. Even with the shadow of fatigue lingering in and around her eyes, they twinkled at her cafe latte and the cheese spread on her bagel. She had never tasted any of these things before, I assumed. And I watched her, as she tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear and had another bite.

"It's strange to see you out of your usual clothes," I said. "And the veil."

"I feel strange, too. Sister Alice is usually the only one to see me like this."

"You're almost unrecognizable."

"Oh."

I poured more coffee into my mug. "Not necessarily a bad thing," I said, and looked at her. "Would it be weird to say I've always wondered how long your hair is?"

She blinked at me.

I shrugged. "Don't know why, but I've imagined it to be shorter."

Her fingers rose to her wavy hair that reached the bottom of her breasts. "It used to be shorter," she said. "Not even touching my shoulders. Shorter than yours."

"It's rather hard to imagine," I said.

"It is, isn't it? I never had it cut at Briarcliff."

How strange it was to talk to her about such a small, insignificant thing, in my house, while having bagels for breakfast. But I felt no awkwardness in it, like this was how we had been living for a long time. The previous night felt like a mere nightmare. And for a second, I thought I could forget about all of it by the time I went to bed tonight.

After my third cup of coffee, Wendy came home. She put paper bags down on the kitchen counter, and came to me. Her hands rose to my cheeks, her gaze on my lips. But she only pulled me in for a hug. Although Mary also greeted her, Wendy didn't so much as to flash a fake smile. I was the only one Wendy saw, and she seemed determined to keep it that way.

"So, what are your plans for today?" she said, as she made herself a cup of coffee.

"Going to the police. And maybe, I'll show Mary Eunice around the town."

"Oh." Wendy threw a glance at Mary. "I was thinking we'd see Barbara and Louise. They came over yesterday, after I came back from Jude's office."

They were two of our best friends, the only lesbians in town besides us. The only people who could support Wendy in my absence.

"You should see your friends," Mary said. She shrugged, dropping her gaze to her almost empty cup. "I can see the town by myself."

"You can't walk around alone," I said. "It's not safe."

So, I promised Wendy to see them after the trip to the police station, and gave Mary an impromptu tour on the way to it. I taught her which places she should stay away from. Sketchy neighborhoods, the record shop that would rip her off, the movie theater also known as a hotbed of varmints. I showed her my favorite places. The bar with a very accepting owner, the Chinese restaurant that served incredible dumplings, and my habitual hair salon, if she wished to have her hair cut and done. It was not the best town on earth, but it had bite-sized pieces of goodness spreading over.

From the driving seat, I saw a three-storied, red-brick building behind a sizable signboard of Cola.

"That's where I work," I said. "If I still got the job, that is."

But, Mary seemed to be more absorbed in the radio. She scowled at it, as she bit her nails off.

At the red light, I called her name. My voice didn't seem to cut through the fog encompassing her. I said her name again, and put my hand on her shoulder. That made her jump in her seat, as though my touch blistered her skin through the clothes. In the eyes that finally registered my presence, the weak sunlight twirled, making them much paler than the dark grey I was accustomed to. In them, I saw the beginning of tears.

"Mary Eunice, do you want to go home?"

She shook her head.

"Mary."

"I'm okay." This was her third lie today.

I wanted to sigh, but kept it in. "Listen, I know Wendy hasn't been . . . how you expected her to be. But, you remember how I saw you in the beginning. And now, look at us." I sought her hand. "Give her some time to adjust, yeah? Everything will work out."

The layer of tears thickened. "Promise?" she said.

"Promise," I said. "Tell you what, why don't we go out tonight, three of us? I'll take you to our favorite restaurant."

She bit her lip, and nodded.

"So, you're okay?" I looked into her face. "Anything else you want to tell me?"

Something crept across her face. But just as quickly, it vanished. I asked the question again. Then, her attention again returned to the radio.

"I'm simply worried that, right at this moment, they might start talking about us," she said.

I looked at the radio. It was then the person behind us honked the horn. Two short honks, and a long one at the end, just in case the first two didn't deliver the message clearly enough. I looked over my shoulder, and saw an old woman swinging her arm around in her car. Her mouth moved, yelling something. The traffic light had changed. I unlocked the parking brake and drove forward.

"Don't worry about that," I said to her.

"But, what if Sister Jude has reported to the police— What if she was waiting for us at the police station?" Her voice changed from dispirited to panic-stricken.

"She won't."

"How would you know?"

"Jude is too proud to rely on outside people," I said. "I escaped under her surveillance. She would want to take care of this out of public view."

Her body became less rigid. But her glow continued to hide under the surface. She looked out the window, just like she'd done last night, seeing something that didn't exist there. I could not ignore the unease deep in my gut.

"So, it's not the police you gotta watch out for." I turned the steering wheel to the right. "It's the faces you know. Arden, Sánchez . . . Someone might be in town already."

"Do you think they would take me back to Briarcliff and send me to Washington?"

"Beats me," I said. "Technically, there was nothing that tied you to that place— We are here."

I went off the busy road, and parked in the parking lot behind the police station. We got out of the car.

"Would you care if they did?" she said, over the roof of the car.

The metal surface reflected the light from the sun. I had to put my hand over my forehead to see her face.

"What?"

"Would you care if they took me away?"

The wind blew, making her long hair wave, and she scrunched her face up. I don't know why, but that sight reminded me of the Golden Retriever my neighbor had when I was a kid. Peggy, that was her name. She and I were best friends. She liked me, probably more than she liked her owner. Every evening, when I had to leave for dinner, she would beg me to stay, putting her chin on my lap, batting her eyelashes at me. Then she would whine, as if I would leave her for good. I remembered the heartache.

"Of course," I said to Mary. "Do you remember what I said to you last night? In the infirmary?"

"You can't do this without me."

I nodded. "I mean that. Now, let's go."

I didn't think much of this, thinking it was another out-of-the-blue question of hers. But had I known the true meaning, hidden behind the words and under the tired smiles, I would've chosen a different path. I know I would've.


	27. Chapter 27

My first experience with the police, as a victim instead of a reporter, turned out to be anything but delightful. The guy at the reception seemed friendly enough. Within a minute, though, it became plain that it was a terrible assumption. He was an amiable, good-looking, young man, and he knew it. He gave Mary a sweet smile, like that of a man flirting with a girl in a bar. Even with me speaking to him, he fixed his eyes on her, estimating her attire. I had let her borrow my dress this day. The longest dress in my closet. Although it only revealed the half bottom of her shins, it still seemed too short on her. I almost regretted not allowing her to put on her habit. I felt like everyone looked at her with a predatory gaze, with morbid curiosity so typical to people living in small towns.

I told the boy about Briarcliff, about my victimization. His face and attitude showed nothing I had hoped to see. Nothing that resembled compassion or the sense of duty. There was only a predatory enthusiasm, sprinkled with fake sweetness, towards Mary. If she hadn't continuously tugged at my sleeve, I might have given him a slap on the cheek, at least, and spent the day in jail.

At last, I decided to go home.

"I can't believe they are all I have to rely on," I said, as I strode across the parking lot.

Mary followed me. "But they promised to investigate. You have to trust them."

 _Trust. What an interesting concept._

I got my keys out, and unlocked the door of the car. Once I sat in the driving seat, I put a cigarette between my lips and lit it. Mary sat beside me.

"You don't get it," I said. The cigarette smoke filled the confined space. "They are worse than sloths. They invest more energy and resources in putting everything off than actually doing their jobs."

"But, they are the police."

"My point exactly."

"Aren't they supposed to help us?"

"Mary Eunice—"

"Yes?"

I let out the sigh I'd been holding in for half an hour. "You do have a lot to learn, darling," I said.

We then drove home, stopping once at a tiny store to get Mary a bottle of Cola. The black beverage had always captivated her, she said, but she could only stare at it in a shop before. A product of secularization, as Jude called it. I opened the bottle for her. Her eyes widened at the fizz. And when she took the timid first sip, her hand flew to cover her mouth, her eyes wider. She studied the bottle then, with a new type of admiration. She drunk slowly, shivering every time the bubbles stroked the inside of her throat. And when she wasn't shivering, she was asking me if I wanted a sip. I only accepted the offer once, to satisfy her. Even as we neared home, the bottle was still half-full.

"It'll go flat if you take that much time," I said.

"What if I put this in the refrigerator? I'm getting rather full."

"It'll just turn into disgusting sugar water."

I parked in the driveway. There was a teal car in front of the house.

"Your friend's?" Mary asked.

I gave her a nod. "I assumed we'd go to their place."

As soon as I stepped in the house, someone pulled me in a crushing hug. I felt my spine grate.

"Oh, Lana. What a miracle to have you back!" Louise said, and tightened her embrace. She was a short person. My collarbones must have been digging into her cheek.

"Good to see you, too, Louise." I gave her gentle pats on the back.

Barbara and Wendy stood just a couple of feet away, watching the scene. My eyes met with Barbara's, and we waved at each other.

"They just came," Wendy said.

Then, Louise finally showed me mercy and let go. Her hands rested on my shoulders, giving me a squeeze. She arched her brows, as she shook her head. "Crazy, man. Crazy," she said, in her keen voice. "We came here yesterday, comforting her and all, and now you're alive. It's a Christmas miracle. You are like Gay Jesus, Lana. This must be how his followers felt when he came back."

I had missed the harmless absurdity of her, and such child-like eagerness. And the moment she finished speaking, her eyes found Mary behind me. Her mannerism changed in an instant. She straightened her back, chin up, and stuck her hands into her pants pockets. She gave Mary a lopsided smile, very jubilant and mischievous. I'd seen that face many times before.

With much reluctance, I introduced Mary to the two of them. Louise took a swift step forward. "Louise Brewer. A landlord. Honored to meet you." She shook her hand, while maintaining the flattering mien.

Mary clutched the Cola bottle to her chest, as she murmured a polite greeting. She looked at me. "I'm going to be in the guest room."

"You could stay here," I said. "They won't bite."

There was that tired smile again. "No, I don't want to be a nuisance. I have some stuff to take care of, anyways." She slipped away, shrinking her shoulders, as she brushed past Wendy and Barb.

We moved back into the living room, then. Barb sat on my left in the couch, as Louise had gotten herself a chair, sitting backwards.

Wendy made me a cup of coffee, and sat on my right. "How did it go at the police?" she said.

At that, I felt the boiling frustration return. "Awful. Just absolutely the worst. They only let me fill out a complaint form."

"A complaint form?" Wendy furrowed her brows, lip curling.

"' _That's all we could do for now,'_ they kept saying it like a goddamn parrot."

"No one talked to you?"

I shook my head. "Not even a _decent_ detective. I was abducted and put into the custody of a religious lunatic for fuck's sake, but no, I just need to wait for my turn like everybody else."

"That sucks," Louise said, "Someone once broke into my car and stole my sandwich. They never found out who did it." She shrugged, as though she hadn't just compared her sandwich to my basic human rights.

"I'm sorry, Lana." Barb gave a sympathetic smile. "Did they tell you how long it might take?"

"No. But I'm planning on going there again in a few days. They are just like pigeons. They'll forget about my case otherwise."

"It's probably for the best," she said.

And we sighed in unison. The room fell quite, with only the creaking sound of Louise's chair.

"So—" Louise leaned forward in her char. A wicked smirk showed her teeth. "That Mary girl. I saw you two in the parking lot of the police station. Didn't we?" She looked at Barb, who gave her a half-hearted nod.

"Yeah?" I said.

"On our way here," Louise said. "I recognized the car and you. Then, there was a _blonde_ girl with you." She gestured to Wendy, as though we couldn't see the _non-blonde_ curls of her. "I mean, for a hot second I thought she was your mistress."

"Louise, really?" Barb said.

"They look pretty intimate is what I meant," Louise said quickly.

This, the gossip-loving part of her, I had not missed. How she managed to jump from one topic to another, it never failed to puzzle me.

"Could you keep it down a little?" I asked. "She might hear you."

Louise let out a soft gasp, and covered her mouth with both of her hands. "Sorry," she said.

"She's my dear friend," I said, feeling the need to defend us, our honor. "So, in that sense, she's just as important to me as a lover. I wouldn't blame you for seeing intimacy between us."

I looked at Wendy, and she smiled back.

"Is she interested in women?" Louise said.

 _Great_ , I thought. I don't know how I'd forgotten, that the word _sentimentality_ didn't exist in the world of Louise Brewer.

"She was a nun— Is a nun." I waved a dismissive hand. "Whatever. The point is, she isn't interested in anybody."

Wendy let loose a snort. "You don't know that. Everybody has those feelings. Even pious people."

"Not everybody," I said. "Some people are not born that way. It's not a requirement for being a human. Like your uncle Kenneth. You said he's never had a love interest."

"But did she tell you so, specifically?" Wendy said. "If not, how could you know? She's not a baby. I'm sure she's at least had a crush or two in her life."

This whole conversation had taken an unexpected turn, and made me quite uncomfortable. Now I had to confront this side of Mary that I had never thought about before. The face of her I had never seen, or dared to imagine. The romantic part of her, sharing her life with someone, in the same way Wendy and I did.

"Hasn't she told you anything about that kind of stuff before?" Wendy asked.

"When do you think we had a chance like that?"

She shrugged, re-crossed her legs. "You told her about us. Seems like you had plenty of opportunities."

It was this moment that, for the first time, I felt her bitterness directed at me. Not just at Mary Eunice, but also at me. At us. It was as if the collective idea of _us,_ what we had shared inside those walls, irritated her. I couldn't understand why. I didn't want to know why.

I got up, and moved to the kitchen for another cup of coffee.

"What I'm saying is that," Wendy said from her couch. "She's probably just repressing those feelings."

Her words continued to resonate inside my head, even long after Louise and Barbara had left. I thought about it. And I thought about the police officer, his interest in Mary, and tried to imagine them together.—They looked like a photograph cut out of a magazine. The perfect couple.

There was nothing I wanted more than for Mary to find happiness, close to me, in this town if she wished. But while she knew what was best for me, I had no idea how to make her happy. All of those things that used to made her smile, I'd taken them away from her. That made me feel like a failure.

###

Later that afternoon, I suggested we have dinner at our favorite Chinese restaurant in downtown. Just as I had promised Mary. Even though I mentioned it in the most nonchalant way possible, however, it still met with protest from Wendy. The expectant luster vanished from her eyes at the first syllable of Mary's name.

"Can we have a date night, just two of us?" she said. "It's the first peaceful night we could spend together since you came back. Can't we have that?"

"I want that, too." I gave her a quick peck on the lips. "But I promised her. She needs to see the town. I think this will be a wonderful opportunity to do that."

Her lips tightened, but she threw in the towel eventually. She knew me, knew the strength of my determination too well, to think I would compromise.

But she was no pushover. She made that point very clear in the restaurant, as she got a load of Mary from behind the menu. I knew then, that my headache wouldn't go away that easily.

The intensity of her gaze was by no means easy to ignore. Mary, seeming to be engrossed in the wide variety of dishes and drinks, still would have a peep often times. And when their eyes met, it was always Mary that quickly averted her eyes. The atmosphere around our table felt colder, pricklier, than the rest of the place. I heard soothing Chinese music, coming from near the kitchen, but I supposed these two didn't.

After placing an order, Wendy began to talk about her work and our mutual friends. One of her male colleagues that we always hated had a car accident, the nice German neighbor returned to her country after the passing of her mother, another kind neighbor found himself a wife, the clothing shop we liked was temporarily closed for renovation. I listened to her. I didn't mind listening to her talk about anything.

Then, the waiter brought us our food, fried rice for Wendy and one serving of noodles for Mary and me to share. With the plate before her, though, Mary fidgeted. She struggled with her chopsticks, holding them like a fork. Then, her uncertain eye cast a glance at me. I taught her how to hold them, and with much awkwardness, she bought the food to her mouth. Her eyes crinkled up, as she covered her mouth with her free hand. I dug up all the shrimp, and gathered them on my side of the plate. In return, I gave her most of the vegetables.

"You aren't listening," Wendy said.

I looked up, and found her scooping up her rice with her fork and letting it drop.

"Your new colleague is a dick, and one of your students got the flu before the break." I took a sip of my Cola. "I am listening."

A heavy sigh escaped her lips. Her dark eyes shifted to Mary again.

"So, Mary," she said, putting down her fork.

Either from a simple surprise or fright, Mary's eyes widened, her mouth freezing. The noodles held between her chopsticks fell back into the plate.

"Yes?" Mary straightened her back.

"Do you have a place to go? Where does your family live?"

Mary put down her chopsticks slowly, as though they were a bomb. "I don't have a family. There is no place for me to go."

Wendy glanced at me. I didn't say anything, as I tried to figure out where this was going.

"So—" Wendy said, "are you going to stay here? In this town?" I thought her voice sounded a bit softer now.

"Yes, ma'am, I think so."

"In our house?"

"I need her here with me," I said to Wendy. "When I go to court, I will need a witness. Until the case is settled— I don't know how long it'll take, but until then, I need her." Then, I gave Mary a firm squeeze on her hand. "Even after that, you could stay if you want, okay?"

Mary gave me a slow nod.

Wendy brought a piece of chicken to her mouth. "You're going to need a job, though. I mean, I can feed two people, but not three."

"I'm going to see Moschella tomorrow, to see if I still have the job," I said.

"Fuck Moschella. You need to rest." She then looked at Mary. "I'm not going to kick you out. But you need to contribute to the household."

"Wendy, I told you, it's not safe for her to walk around by herself."

"So what, she's going to hide until the case is completely settled?" She looked at Mary. "Is that what you want? To keep hiding under the bed?"

"For Christ's sake, she just left behind everything. Would it hurt to give her a break?"

Wendy tightened her grip on her fork. Her eagle-like eyes bored into mine, without blinking. No word left her mouth, until the waiter came to our table.

"Is everything alright, ladies?"

I couldn't determine whether he meant the food or us, but I gave him an amicable nod anyway. Wendy lit a cigarette, said everything couldn't be more perfect, and ordered a glass of whatever alcoholic beverage they had. It was her end-of-discussion signal. She didn't meet my gaze. When the waiter walked away, Mary excused herself from the table, and ran to the bathroom. She kept her gaze down, so her bottom lashes would keep an overflow of tears at bay.

I felt helpless, heartbroken, as I remained in my seat. It was the second night of her new life, and she already had to suppress her whimpers of pain in a public restroom. Wendy didn't seem agitated. She altered between the rice and the cigarette, sometimes even combining the two in her mouth. I felt her bouncing her legs under the table.

"You sounded like Mrs. Springer," I said to her.

Mrs. Springer was the vice-principal of her school, famous for her unyielding strictness. Her favorite words were 'punctuality' and 'virtue', while tears of children were the thing she disliked the most.

Wendy stubbed out her cigarette. "I don't know what you're talking about."

And of course, she did. When a person says that particular phrase, it is always the case that they know.

"Be nicer to her," I said. "She has a lot to deal with right now. Support her, instead of being her enemy."

"An enemy?" She raised her eyebrows. "I'm simply teaching her about—"

"You aren't like that to your students."

"Like what?"

"Like you are trying to crush her spirit," I said. "You look like a mean old lady." As I said this, I felt the quiver of my lip, felt the tensity of my muscles between the brows. But I didn't know for whom I shed these tears.

Wendy dropped her gaze to her dish. She kept quiet, opening and closing her mouth. I looked away. In the kitchen four tables away from us, our waiter and a female worker stood and observed us. We should have stayed in the house, I thought.

"I don't trust her," Wendy said. "I can't."

"I understand it takes time."

She shook her head. "I can't have you taken away again."

I couldn't fathom why she felt that way. "She won't take me away from you," I said.

I reached to take her hand. The moment my fingers grazed her warmth, though, she drew away. Not quickly, but with reservation, resting the hand in her lap. She now refused to see my face in shame.

"When I was in there," I said, "I thought about us, about how, even after what you'd done, I still love you. And I dreamed of coming home to you, starting over." I glanced in the direction Mary had run off. "This wasn't what I wanted. Not _how_ I wanted it. It's like my childhood all over again, seeing my parents fight constantly. But I can't pick a side this time."

Wendy looked up, a little struck by my admission.

"I will never pick a side, Wendy," I said.

She wanted nothing more than my support, to justify her own virulence, I knew that much. And I think she was convinced that she'd have it. As she looked back at me, I saw her heart break, her confidence shatter. I couldn't allow myself to cry for her.

In spite of this, I still went to bed with her that night. When I woke up the next morning, I found Mary sleeping in the couch again.


	28. Chapter 28

Just as speculated, Moschella, my editor at the Gazette, had fired me. He didn't even wait a week, before he had my desk cleared, and gave it to a new young journalist. Everyone now acted as if I never existed there in the first place. When I walked in the office, at the first clicking of my heels, their eyes flew to me. Their jaws dropped. Most of them showed unapologetic curiosity, as journalists should. Some of them exhibited strong disapproval, curling their lips, as though they abhorred _my audacity to come back._

Perhaps, if it had been someone else, Moschella had shown more compassion and understanding. But I was a woman, with ambition and no _feminine softness_ , as the sexist pig loved to put it. We were like a lion and a hyena, always had been. From the very start, when I began to work under him, he'd thirsted for a chance to get rid of me.

It was around noon, and Moschella was not there at the editor's desk. I could not decide if it was a good thing. Only one thing was clear.—If I had seen him, I would have given him a punch or two in the greasy, haughty face.

"Your stuff is in a box in the storage," said one of my ex-colleagues, without any compassion.

I headed for the dusty place. On my way, I saw Samuel the janitor. His astonishment mirrored that of my colleagues, but after that, he smiled from ear to ear. I greeted him. I offered him a cigarette, as I used to do. But he waved his rugged hand.

"I'm tryin' to quit now," the black man said. "My wife now believe in science and call 'em cancer sticks. Gives me lectures and all that jazz."

I laughed in awkwardness, as I drew back my cigarette case.

He leaned on his mop. "So, what brought you back here? I heard you got a job at another publisher or somethin'."

"Who said that?"

"Your boss. Said you sold yourself."

I didn't find that surprising at all. It sounded like something Moschella would do with great joy, while snickering with his stupid cigar between his thin lips.

"No, I was just . . . taking some time off," I said.

He gave a calm nod, as though he had never bought Moschella's lie for a second. "Everythin' okay, I hope? You've lost a whole lot of weight, haven't you?"

I admitted it, but said everything was fine.

"How's your—" He gave a gentle, suggestive look. "—darlin' friend? I seen her once in town a lil' while ago. Couldn't say she looked happiest."

"She's fine also. I'd tell her you were worried."

Then, at last, he seemed satisfied a little. "Are you goin' to chase the woman killer again? Bloody Face?" He leaned in, his eyes curious behind the frames of his glasses. "You know they haven't had a trial yet."

Poor Kit. This town— The whole country still had no idea about his innocence. They remained blind, and continued to believe in the man of insane brutality that never existed.

"Well," I said, "I am going to chase the case, because they got the wrong guy. The true manic is still somewhere out there."

Just as I said this, one of my ex-colleagues walked by, and let loose a snort. "And here we thought you were still writing about America's best pie."

I glared at his back, as he walked away.

"Don't listen to him, miss," Samuel said. "I'm no man of education, but I've worked here long and seen many journalists. And you're sharper than most of those white men. If you got a hunch that they got the wrong guy, then _you_ find the right guy."

I felt the burden on my shoulder got a little lighter. Until this moment, I hadn't realized how much I needed to hear those words, from someone that believed in me, in what I did. And I thought it a great responsibility, for his sake too, to get the truth out in the open.

I found the small box with my stuff in it, and with it, I walked out of the building. Before Briarcliff, I'd always dreamed of this moment. In countless daydreams, I had descended the front stairs with exhilaration, with my hair fluttering in the triumphant breeze, like in the movies. I'd thought I would feel the same kind of thrill I felt at the night of escape. Elation for the newly gained freedom.—But I did not. As I sat in my car, speechless, I stared down at the box in the passenger's seat. Then at last, it dawned on me that I had no job, and how unpredictable my future would be from now forward.

When I came home, I told Wendy all about this. The first thing she said was,

"Did you kick him in the balls?"

She had never met Moschella in person. She just hated the concept of him, as I always complained about him one way or another.

"No. I will do that at the Pulitzer," I said.

I sat on the floor of the bedroom with the box, sorting the things out. They had confiscated my notes and drafts. Someone definitely had stolen my pens. I never had a picture of Wendy on my desk to begin with. So, all I had left was some out-of-ink pens, and three cooking books that helped me write cooking articles during my less-than-successful career. Although I thought I had a pack of Marlboro hidden in my drawer, I couldn't find it in the box.

"At least, it saved the trouble." Wendy picked up one of the books, flipping through without a hint of curiosity. "You were going to quit anyway. And you got to do it without seeing his face."

"At some point. I don't know if we could afford this right now."

She put the book down. With a sigh, she looked to the wall that divided out room and Mary's. The color in her eyes made my heart sink.

But we could not keep ignoring the issue of money. "Maybe I can work from home," I said. "I can write at the same time."

"Make _her_ work from home. You don't have to do everything yourself."

I bit my lip. Her tone still had the remnants of distaste from last night. The only reprieve, perhaps, was that she now kept her voice low.

"She did everything for me before," I said. "It's my turn. And, hey— I just remembered, we have some savings, don't we?"

"That money is for emergency, in case something happens to one of us."

"That's right, she's one of us."

Wendy fell quiet. It did not convince her, but whatever thoughts swarmed her mind, she chose not to vocalize. Instead, she gestured towards the bed, without casting a glance. On the edge of the mattress lay my dress and the coat with a sewn-back-on button, wrapped in plastic dry cleaning bags. Mary's pocket watch sat on top of the pile.

"I didn't know where you wanted to put them," she said. "In the closet?"

I lifted the watch, closer to my face, and followed the second hand as it ticked. This seemed to be the only thing that never changed. This rhythm of time.

"Yeah, in the closet," I said. I gave the coat a home in the back of the closet, and the pocket watch in the nightstand. They would be safe in there, and close to me.

After the tidying-up, I lay on the bed. With open arms, I gestured for Wendy to come lie with me, like we always did when one of us was upset. She acted unimpressed by it. But I saw a tiny smile, as she climbed into the bed, climbed onto me. Her hand came to cup my cheek. She stroked my bottom lip with her thumb, kissed me, and covered our bodies with the blankets. We could hear the faint chirping of birds from outside.

I could fall asleep like this. But as I listened to my heartbeat, the tranquility grew heavy, and turned into something unsettling. I found myself straining my ears, to listen to something beyond the silence and the birds.

"How's Mary Eunice doing?" I asked.

Wendy lay still for a moment, then buried her face into my chest. "Hasn't come out of the room as far as I know."

I craned my neck to see the clock. It was past three. Quite a while since the rather late breakfast we'd had this morning. She should be hungry by now.

"Maybe she's asleep," I said. "I should've let her rest yesterday. "

At first, I felt at ease believing that. That Mary was winding down, in peace, and that it was not her intention to lock herself up like that. She'd spent the last five years pushing herself, allowing herself only a minimal amount of sleep. She deserved to make up for all the deprived sleep, I told myself.

But even when Wendy prepared dinner for three, there was no sign of her ever coming out. I became restless, and at last, I gave in the urge to knock on her door. I could've sworn I heard some noises inside, but still, no response came. After some seconds of contemplation, I reached for the doorknob, and tried to pushed it open.—It did not budge.

It was only half an hour later that she finally appeared in the living room. She didn't seem to hear or see me, as she walked straight to where Wendy sat. On the table, she put the rest of the money Arden had given her, and begged Wendy to let her stay.

ooOooOoo

Mary now spent most of her time in her room. She only ate little, just enough for her heart to keep pumping. Under her puffy red eyes were dark circles, her blonde hair dishevelled, her skin almost translucent, as though no blood ran through her veins. Watching her these days was like watching a flower wilt. Everytime I got a glimpse of her, it frightened me how twiggy she looked. And no matter how much I tried to water and nurture her, tried to bring her in the sun, her eyes would always look at the ground.

"Talk to me," I would say to her. "Let me help you."

She would give me a forced smile, then. "I just need some time to think about stuff," she'd say. She only gave me lies lately.

Sometimes, I would hear her open the window of her room at night. She would sit on the windowsill and spend the entire night there. On nights when unease robbed me of sleep, I would place myself on the sill of my bedroom, too. I'd rest my head against the window, and imagine that we sat next to each other, hand in hand. We would look at the moon, then, the way we used to do in the chapel. Instead of shivering in the cold, we now had blankets to cover ourselves up. We wouldn't have to fear that someone might catch us anymore. The dawn was no longer the end of the ephemeral salvation. When we left Briarcliff, we left behind those things that used to torment us, too. But on our way home, something else had come along with us, without our notice. Something equally cancerous. It ate away at her. It grew inside her.

I no longer knew what she wanted, or who she was. The last vestige of the nun who'd saved my life many times was fading away, as quickly as rain washes away dirt. Nobody would've believed that only a week ago, it was her that coaxed me to eat an apple, to keep on living. My caning wounds stopped aching. And I felt like, when they became mere scar tissues, Mary too would slip through my fingers.

Wendy chastised me for worrying too much. "Let her sulk as much as she pleases. There will be time when she gets tired of it."

She said it out of bitterness. Still, I couldn't deny the wisdom of an elementary-school teacher in her attitude. Leave her be, and concentrate on my own writing. And when I saw Mary on rare occasions, she told me the same. It was never as easy as they made it out to be, though. I could not seem to sit at my desk for half an hour, without Mary occupying my thoughts, without feeling the temptation to knock on her door.

I would've done anything to get her to come out, to see her face and feel her skin. But most of the time, all I received was a feeble repetition of 'I'm okay,' from the other side of the door. So, a couple of days after the New Year's, when I told her I was going to the police again, she took me by surprise with her demand to accompany me.

"I'm just going to pressure them," I said. "I don't even know if they've read my complaint form."

"It's fine," she said, opening the door wider. "I'm going with you." She then walked back in to get a jacket.

I thought I saw a hint of sparks back in her eyes. "Okay. Maybe some fresh air will revive you, too."

As I drove the car, however, she could barely hold her head up in the passenger's seat. Her body looked so frail. I feared that a simple turn of the car might snap her neck, the seat belt might bruise her.

I asked her if she was alright. She gave a heavy nod. I asked if she wanted to eat something. She gave a shake of her head. And before my questions got redundant, she interrupted me by asking how my writing was coming along.

"I'm still in the process of organizing the information," I said. "My memories are sort of fuzzy, and— Are you really sure you don't want any food?"

"If I could help you in any way, I'd love to."

"Thank you— How about a bottle of Cola? Orange juice?"

"I might know things that you don't. I know about other patients, and the staff."

I gave her a look, but it had no effect. She continued to look ahead, with her ghostly gaze. Such emptiness she held inside her.—I'd seen that face before, not of Mary, but of the many people I'd met at Briarcliff.

"Could you tell me, then," I said, "about the creature in the woods? You knew about it. That's why you knew not to go in there, isn't it? What is that thing? It chased us, Kit, Grace, and me, trying to kill us."

Seconds ticked. And as my words reached her, her face gained color. The color of hesitation. The familiar part of her resurfaced a bit.

"Four people went missing during the short period of time I was there. Does it have something to do with it?"

"I'm—" She, instead of a crucifix, fidgeted with the tip of her hair. "Dr. Arden— I—" She took a shaky breath once, and bit her lip.

It was neither an answer nor denial. Although I felt my impatience grow, I could not press her, in fear of pushing her back into her shell. Her hesitation filled the inside of the car. But the air did not feel as thick as it used to be. If that was the best I could get, I had to be happy with it.

"There's plenty of time," I said. "Just know that I will never judge you. All I want is the truth."

* * *

reviews will be highly _**(highly!)**_ appreciated. make me happy pls


	29. Chapter 29

I met another hindrance to truth at the police station. And this was how the last bit of my patience was annihilated.

As we entered the building, I saw the same grossly-friendly boy at the reception desk.—At least, that was what I thought. He looked up from a men's fashion magazine, and when he recognized us, the innocuousness in his eyes vanished in an instant. He drew his brows together. He brought a cigarette to his mouth, and returned to the magazine.

I cast a glance at Mary. She, too, seemed anxious and perplexed by the sudden change in his attitude. When you have come to check the progress of your case, this is not the sight you wish to see. This complete lack of interest, teetering on the edge of silent aggression. And Mary's presence didn't seem to ease the situation, either. It was the most perplexing part. Still, I felt too desperate to walk away without a word.

I cleared my throat. It had no effect on him, so I did it again. He leaned back in his chair at last, and threw me a look, disgusted and arrogant. I was used to it.

"I filed a complaint form a while back." I rested my bag on the desk. "And I'd like to know if your folks have found anything yet."

His eyes travelled between me and Mary. "We called. The . . . Bloomington Manor."

"Briarcliff Manor," I said, and widened my smile. "And?"

"They said there was no unlawful conduct."

"They did. And let me guess, you talked to Sister Jude."

The boy shrugged. "A real nice lady. She told us everything."

I couldn't help but sneer at their obliviousness, their incompetence. "Everything, huh?" I said. "What exactly did she tell you?"

"That there is no case." He resumed his reading.

But it convinced neither of us. I snatched the magazine out of his hands, and reiterated the question many times, until the boy got fed up.

"She did confirm that you are a patient there, and your—" He waved a quite disdainful hand at Mary. "—friend also. And you two have broken out of their—"

"Excuse me?" I said. I looked at Mary, and her expression confirmed that I'd heard it right. "She wasn't an inmate. She was a nun."

Mary came to stand next to me. "Yes, I worked there for five years. Sister Jude was my superior."

He regarded her dress. "You don't look like a nun to me."

"Because she's not in a habit. Use your brain."

My insult seemed to have struck the very core of his ego. The crease between his brows deepened, as he sank further into his seat.

"A patient with vivid delusions, is what the chief sister told us," he said. "They were just playing along, treating her as one of them. And you—" He jerked his chin at me. "You, with your sinful fixation, took advantage of her condition. Look at her, you've made her confused."

"What are you—"

"We all know you two ran away like darn Romeo and Juliet. Trying to imitate real lovers. Well, this isn't your Bloomington Manor anymore. We aren't going to be a part of your crooked fantasies." His upper lip curled a little, only slightly, but with enough eloquence.

So this was how that old bitch wanted to play. What a dirty trick it was, to make the biggest obstacle out of the made-up love affair of us. Irritating, and yet, not surprising at all. In fact, I felt mad that it hadn't occurred to me that she'd do something like this.

"Let us speak to the chief, rookie," I said.

"He's busy."

"So am I. I will not have you wasting any more of my goddamn time." I pressed my palms onto the desk, leaning forward. My heartbeat quickened, my jaw stiff. And there returned a prospect of getting thrown into jail for threatening a police officer. I might've even jumped him, if Mary hadn't covered my hand with hers and given it a squeeze.

The boy glared at me, and squinted at our connected hands on the desk. "Listen, the lady said you weren't dangerous, but never forget we could arrest you."

There were more wasteful, petty exchanges of insults and threats. His facial muscles twitched and convulsed. He raised his coffee cup to his lips, very slowly, keeping up his cool pretence. His nostrils flared, however. The rough exhalation resounded within the walls of the cup.

"You didn't even go there," I said. "You just talked to them on the fucking telephone, and believed everything they told you!"

"Your document was signed by your family member," he said. "There was no illegality."

"Jude _threatened_ her."

"Why didn't she come to us right then?"

I faltered at the question. For the first time, words got stuck in my throat. I couldn't say it, couldn't let those words out. Not because I didn't know the answer, but because I _did_. I knew it and knew that they couldn't know, and knew that it'd bring great shame to Wendy if they did.

In my silence, the reception boy heard the bell of triumph toll. He snickered, and threw another nasty glance at both of us. "No evidence, no case— Now, get your filthy hands off of _my_ desk."

But I kept my hands there. "You want evidence? Solid evidence?" I maintained the defiance in my voice. "Then you'll have it."

With it, I stormed out of the building, making my exit as loud and vicious as possible. I was barely aware of Mary behind me. It was drizzling, and small raindrops fell on my face, sometimes in my eye. I still glared ahead. The cold walls of the police station absorbed the remaining warmth of the air. Goosebumps covered my skin, but I didn't feel cold, even when I sat in the car and rested my hands on the iron steering wheel.

For some minutes, neither of us uttered a word. We just watched the raindrops trickle down the front glass, listened to them hit the car roof above our heads, felt the cold slowly permeate our skin and bones. All of those sensations lured me into hypnosis, then.

And I found myself back in the chapel, back at Briarcliff. The sense of helplessness came back to weigh me down, and my perseverance melted into poisonous, unrelenting doubt. Doubt that Mary and I might have been better off if we'd chosen to stay at Briarcliff. I had never even imagined myself thinking this way. But everything that I'd dreamed of—Wendy's acceptance, Jude's demise, justice for me—seemed quite out of reach. And the worst part was that I could've kept Mary Eunice inside the walls of Briarcliff, instead of the crumbling shell of her. The line between this world and that at Briarcliff slowly melted away.

"I can't believe Sister Jude made up such a lie," Mary said next to me. "I— I _worked_ there, didn't I? I'm not delusional."

"She's playing with your sanity. That's what her kind do, making you destroy yourself."

"But, what if—"

"She trained you to be her right-hand woman" I said. "Remember? She taught you how to conduct a room search. If you were just an inmate, she wouldn't give you such power."

She thought about it, and gave a wavering nod. Yet, she failed to wipe off the breath of self-doubt, letting loose numerous sighs. Out of sheer habit, I slipped my hand into hers. But then, as her instinct drove her to squeeze back, I regretted my impulsive action. The reception boy's words reemerged with the warmth of her skin. I stared at our hands. For the first time I thought about us, our connection, from someone else's point of view. I wondered if we really looked like, what, Romeo and Juliet? The laughable thought made me restless inside. Not the idea of us being together, though, but the idea of people seeing us as such. They seemed and sounded the same. But to me, there was a significant difference between the two.

And It made me feel uncomfortable, _because_ I knew it made Mary feel uncomfortable. People are nasty, sticking their noses into others' business, but I never wanted her to find it out like this. I never wanted her to experience hatred and prejudice like this, firsthand. Conflicting thoughts began to take root in me, one part of me wanting to pull away, and the other needing to stay in her warmth, in defiance.

Because of this Jude's stupid lie, our sacred, pure gesture now began to have other meaning neither of us wished for. Whether it was Jude's intention, I could never tell. But if she could see how far apart Mary and I were right now, I had no doubt she would be delighted.

.

Mary's agitation lingered on our way home. She would fidget, and turn to me as though to say something. And when our eyes met, she would have second thoughts and return to her apprehensive musing, growing gravier each time. Along with suppressed sighs, numerous questions—about the evidence I was thinking to obtain—fell from her lips. I couldn't answer any of them. Despite her pressing, though, I knew that the thing she really wanted to say stayed in her. She continued to play with her hair, as her blank eyes looked ahead. It felt like the look of it by itself could drive another human to insanity. I tried to distract myself by listening to the sound of the engine, by focusing on the road.

When we reached the edge of downtown, at last, Mary opened her mouth again.

"I'd like to go to church," she said, her gaze fixed on her lap.

It shouldn't have come as a surprise, but it did.

"To church?"

She nodded. "It doesn't have to be a Catholic church. I need to . . . to talk to someone."

I pulled over to the sidewalk, with a little hesitation and a heavy heart. "You know, I'm here if you need someone. Why don't I listen to you?" My tone sounded awfully cheerful and fake. It destroyed my facade and revealed my dejected spirit.

"I will come to you. I promise. But I must confess to the Lord and ask for His forgiveness first."

I wondered how, after all these calamities, she still managed to maintain her faith.

I agreed and made a U-turn, driving to the only church I knew of. It was the biggest church in town, standing right in the centre of downtown, in the neighborhood of my former office building. I parked the car in front of the church. One block away from here, I saw the front stairs I'd descended just several days ago.

I turned to look at Mary, then. She was looking at me already, without moving. Those old sparks swam in her eyes, even in the presence of the dark circles and raw redness around them. Something in me faltered, holding me back from uttering a word. Then, she smiled. I managed to smile back.

"Would you like to come with me?" she asked.

"No, I'd rather wait here. Hold on—" I twisted my body in the seat, and reached for the umbrella in the backseat. "Can't let you catch a cold."

With it in her hands, Mary got off the car. Her small figure disappeared behind the plaid umbrella. And she walked up the stairs with slow, weak steps.

Surrounded by rather short buildings, the Roman Catholic church towered over them like a king. The grey stone walls reached the sky, and on a sunny day, the white steeple would glow in the sun, as bright as the clouds. But right now, the entirety of the building almost blended in with the gloomy sky. The only color that rose from the grey canvas was the redness of the entrance door. I stared at it for some minutes, as a small portion of me expected Mary to walk out shortly. Of course, it didn't happen.

So, I instead opted to occupy my mind with the thing that required my attention. The evidence. Some undeniable, definite proof of my unjustified incarceration at Briarcliff, and of Jude's offense. But what could possibly convince the police now, when my own claim wouldn't do? Jude must have, by now, destroyed everything that might work against her. She must've put seals on the lips of her staff. And if anyone dared to speak in favor of me, she would dismiss the claim as a mere delusion of an insane patient. Even the caning wounds in my ass would be regarded as part of proper treatment.

I should've thought it through, before allowing my spontaneity to drag both me and Mary into the unknown. I knew, that we didn't have a single moment to act any other way that night. But, as I waited for Mary now, with the dreary sound of rain, everything felt like the most inferior version possible. I sat in Wendy's car, and had a place and a person to go back to. Yet, I still had Jude's shackles on me, chained to the accursed place. It tainted me. It made me rot inside.

I had absolute certainty in the moment that, as long as I'd live, this curse would never wear off.

Pedestrians hurried on their way in the ever deteriorating rain. I saw Moschella step out of the office building, wobbling on his diabetic legs. The regular-sized umbrella above his fedora only protected the half of his body. I had a half mind to go after him and spit some nasty insults, but he wasn't worth getting my heels wet.

I looked at the red door of the church again. I didn't have the slightest idea how long a regular confession could last, or what Mary had to confess. It had to be quite important. Important enough to bring back those old sparks, and something more. There was a sensitive, but decided daring in the look, an unfamiliarity that made my heart pound. I couldn't put my finger on it.

 _The old Mary Eunice might be returning._

And I thought, if so, perhaps some food could help the process. I cast a quick glance at the door, got off the car, and ran to the nearby shop without an umbrella. The one Mary had taken was the only umbrella I had in the car. I bought some snacks that might intrigue her. I also got her a candy apple, something familiar to her. On my way back to the car, I stepped right into a puddle, but it did not slow me down.

However, the return of Mary didn't come even long after mine. Cigarettes ran out. As shivers slowly crept up my legs, I grew worried. It could've been easily an hour since she had left. I even saw Moschella come back from God-knows-where. His second lunch, most likely. I left my car, at last, and rushed to the entrance of the church.

Behind the red front door, there was a small, square room, with a leaflet stand and an umbrella stand. It had only one umbrella in it, Mary's plaid umbrella. I pushed the second door open, holding my breath, listening to the unique stillness of a church. There came no sound whatsoever. I looked about, as I took wary steps on the aisle. In the corner lay low the confessional, not quite within reach of the candle light. Both of the curtains of the booth were drawn aside, and the chairs had no occupant.

"Mary Eunice?" My calling soared to the high ceiling, but disturbed none.

This was definitely strange. I called out again, and again, until it summoned the very priest himself. He asked what the problem was. I gave him the description of Mary, with a shaky voice.

"She left, dear, about half an hour ago," he said.

"Left? But, I never saw her come out. I was sitting in front of this building the whole time." All of a sudden, I began to sweat.

"Oh, well— They must've used the backdoor, then, I'm afraid."

"They? Who are _they_? Are you saying she wasn't alone? Where could they possibly go?"

He seemed alarmed. At the same time, though, he seemed to be intrigued to some extent. "No, my child, she was with a friend." His voice contained extra calmness. "A young man. He was sitting there during her—"

At this, the first face that flickered through my mind was the young police officer. His babyish face, full of loathing. I described the boy to the elderly priest, and put him through the wringer. The _interrogation_ , however, only got dissenting headshakes out of the priest.

"I cannot tell if he was a police officer," he said, unruffled by my fieriness. "I had never seen him before. He wore a black suit. Very gentleman-like. Nicely trimmed black hair. Also wore glasses. Does any of this ring a bell?"

I shook my head. None of these characteristics reminded me of anyone I knew, anyone Mary knew. Sánchez wore no glasses and was far from looking like a gentleman. Arden didn't even have hair on his head.—Monsignor Howard? I couldn't bring myself to recall whether he ever had glasses on.

"Did the guy have British accent?" I said.

"I can't tell. I was too far to listen to their conversation." He then shook his head, as though to recollect something. "I was almost certain they were, at least, acquaintances."

But in this town, in the most secluded life she had, Mary didn't have anyone but me and Wendy. Equally unimaginable was Mary leaving me without a word. She would never do that if it was her decision to make. It had to be Monsignor Howard, then. Even if not, it had to be someone in association with Jude, on a mission to take us back. There couldn't be another possibility.

I expressed my gratitude, though in great distress, and walked away. Behind me, I heard the priest give prayers for Mary's safety, but his voice became a mere resounding clang inside my head. I became aware I was shaking like a leaf.

.

I drove back home, then. Fast, but slowing down everytime I saw a person on the sidewalk. Those faces all looked like Mary from behind the window, in the pouring rain. Of course, this would those suspicion from them soon. As they sensed the presence of the slowing car, they would lift their umbrella a little bit, throw me a suspicious look, and start to walk fast or make more distance between us. I'd seen only so many people I could count on one hand. In spite of being under the protection of the roof, I felt cold to the bones, drenched in heartache. Still, I refused to look down. I couldn't miss anything.

There still remained a small portion of hope, that for some reasons, Mary might have gone home by herself. Then I would only have to reprimand her recklessness. I would have an excuse to sit by her side, and convince her to eat, and nothing more. But the house responded to my wish with dead silence, with such a morbid lack of human presence.

I didn't know what to do. So, in a state of near panic, I walked to the phone, looked at the note pinned to the wall, and dialed the number of Wendy's school. My voice trembled, as I addressed myself to the person answering the phone, and asked for my _roommate_.

"I know she's in the middle of a class," I said. "But this is urgent, please."

The man on the phone sounded quite concerned. He left the receiver, and there followed some shuffling sounds over the phone. I heard people murmur, and heard Wendy's name whispered. A whirling sensation trapped me inside all of a sudden. I managed to fall on my weak knees. I rested my head back against the wall, and took each breath with deliberation. I felt like I couldn't breathe deep enough. And at last, a voice came from the other side of the phone. Wendy had shortness of breath, too. Her voice quivered like mine.

I tried to speak, but instead of coherent words, only violent cries came out. "Mary Eunice— In church— Gone—"

Even as my voice returned, the sentences were barely comprehensible. It didn't stop my blabbering, though.

Wendy listened with patience. So much patience, in fact, that it made up for the amount of it I lacked.

"And you think it's someone from . . . Briarcliff?" She said the last particular word in a low voice.

"I know it. It has to be _them_."

"But, why take her? You were alone, too, right? Don't you think it would be more beneficial to take _you_?"

I grew somewhat calmer.

"Maybe," she said, "she really has a friend here." But it sounded, to me, as though she needed the conviction as much as I did.

"She left her umbrella behind. It was pouring."

A soft sigh came through the receiver. "Did you call the police? How did it go with the case?"

At this, the forgotten frustration aggravated the storm of panic inside me. Hot tears returned, melting the skin of my cheeks like acid.

"They are fucking useless maggots! Fuck them! There's nothing they would or could do, when all they do is blindly believe a sadistic old woman!" I took a deep breath. "I need to find her. I need to go to Briarcliff, and see Jude and—"

"No, you won't." Her tone became stern in an instant. "You will not go there, do you hear? We aren't even one hundred percent certain it's Jude. I don't want you to act on rushed assumptions."

"I— But—"

"What if it was bait?" she said. "You're going to be just a shorn sheep. Then you can't save her. Is that what you want?"

I bit the quivering of my lip away. "Yeah, you're right. Sorry."

Then, for some moments, a silence came between us. Yet, so many noises occupied my mind that, at that moment, I couldn't even wonder what Wendy might have on her mind.

"Lana," she said, at last. She sighed again. "I still have one more class to teach. But as soon as I'm done, I'll come home. We'll figure this out together."

.

I went back outside. If Monsignor Howard or one of Jude's men took Mary, there wouldn't be a reason for them to linger in the town. This might be just a huge waste of time and effort. I knew that. But by doing this, I think, I kept myself from going over the edge of sanity. I drove around, inspecting every corner and alley. One time, quite near the church, I thought I'd seen her. Yet, it resulted in another disappointment, as the woman turned out to be someone else. I stopped every passerby, in search of a trace. Nobody had seen Mary Eunice.

My eyelids grew heavy as time passed. Due to fatigue, or the night mist that froze on my eyelashes, I couldn't tell. I kept searching, until the clouds cleared, until the death of the day and the infancy of another.

A premature day, without Mary Eunice.


	30. Chapter 30

**A/N: an emotional chapter ahead lmao**

* * *

The next morning, Wendy found me in the armchair in the living room.

"When did you come home last night?" she said. She seated herself on the arm of the chair, running her fingers through my hair.

"I don't know."

"Did you sleep at all?"

I stared ahead. "Unfortunately."

I took a sip of my coffee. I felt the liquid pass my numb throat, felt it join the previous three cups of it in the stomach. But my tastebuds never seemed to acknowledge its presence. It might as well have been caffeinated water.

Last night's storm had carried away the clouds, and the bright sunlight came through the blinds now. It cast strips of blinding light on the couch and the cushions in front of me. One of the cushions had a bright yellow cover, and it seemed to absorb extra light, hurting my eyes. I could hear children playing on the street. They laughed and let out shrill yells, with the vigor no adult could possess on a Saturday morning.

I was awake, but in a dream at the same time. In the morning before, I had sat in the same place, and watched Mary Eunice sleep in the couch.

Wendy pulled me in, as she planted a kiss on the top of my head. "What are you thinking about?" she asked. Sweetness coated the fragility of her voice, as though we were having pillow talk.

"I just," I said, as my mind swarmed with muddled words and thoughts. "So many times, I wondered when she would ever stop sleeping in this couch, when she had a perfect bed in her room. It's warmer in there, more comfortable. I asked her once. She just apologized." I sighed into the mug, and watched it ripple. "I should've let her sleep wherever she wanted. I only felt like— Felt like she might not feel safe near me anymore."

"But you know that's not true."

"Do I? She was becoming someone else. And when I thought I'd finally had her back, I lost her. Completely."

The blue of her eyes never lost its vividness even in my recollection. In fact, they seemed even more vivid. She was looking at me. At me, not past me, for the first time in forever. It took my breath away.—No, it couldn't be the last image of her. It was too perfect, too morbid. It would clot my veins, and would haunt me to my grave.

"I should've gone in with her," I said. "I knew it was dangerous to leave her alone. But I got scared of the crucifix. I cowered."

I couldn't see what kind of look Wendy had on her face. She just gave me another kiss on the same spot of my head. We remained quiet like this.

Behind the children's laughter and the sound of car engines, I heard the clock on the wall tick. The boring repetition of the ticking sound gained its volume. The harder I tried to ignore it, the louder it grew.—There was never a silent moment in the living room. Even at night, with the street clear, some sort of sound always harassed the peace. And I wondered how Mary could have tolerated it. It would've driven me mad.

Wendy let out a particularly loud sigh. I looked up for the first time in the morning, and saw her pensive face, perhaps a little exhausted, too. Although with her hands on me, her eyes looked somewhere else. The distant countenance reminded me of Mary.

"Lana." The crease between her brows deepened, as she chewed on her fingernail. "Can I— I need to talk to you about something."

I turned to look at the clock. It was almost quarter to eleven. I stood up. "Could it wait? I'm going to the church. The morning gathering should be finished by now." I walked towards the door, put on a jacket, and grabbed the car key.

"For what?" she said, following me. "You don't think they'd show up?"

"The priest might remember something he didn't tell me yesterday."

So, with some reluctance, she dropped the subject, and insisted on accompanying me instead.

###

Many cars occupied the street in the vicinity of the church, and we wasted some time searching for a place to park. Eventually, we parked one block away from the place.

The inside of the church was just as crowded, contrary to my expectation. The passengers of the cars outside sat there, listening to the priest. Although we closed the door very quietly, a few faces still turned to us. We stood next to the door, closed to each other, as we observed the crowd from behind. It was a full house. The spectators only left a few seats empty. Although they sat as still as statues, their bodies still radiated heat in the stifling air. Because of this or something else, my palms began to sweat.

I searched for a certain head of blonde in the ocean of people. I knew it was a fruitless attempt, but I still did. I couldn't help it. Even if this was the real ocean, I still would look for Mary Eunice.

Yet, before I could even finish inspecting the whole nave on my left, the priest said the last prayer, and brought the gathering to an end. The crowd began to move, then. The church became like a festival venue at once. We shrunk in the corner to avoid the upstream of people, but people still bumped into my shoulder. Some of them apologized, while others threw me a look of disapproval and annoyance.

I saw some familiar, albeit unpleasant, faces. Although none of them approached me, luck didn't bless Wendy the same. A woman in a bright purple cloche hat, with a mini version of her by her side, came and greeted Wendy. Then, she beckoned her husband over. If my memory was correct, both of them were her colleagues. They decided to hold a small gathering there, cornering Wendy and me.

"When did you change to this church, Miss Peyser?" the husband asked with a gentle smile.

"Oh, I didn't." Wendy let out a soft laugh, putting up her friendliest pretense. "I'm just here for my roommate." With a humble wave of her hand, she gestured towards me.

The whole family looked at me. Under their friendly masks, their muscles twitched and stiffened. They looked me up and down, with poorly disguised repulsion and distress. I gave them a courteous nod, for the sake of Wendy. The woman pulled her daughter quite close to her, then, as though it didn't suffice to hold the child's hand until she winced.

I had no desire to hide my lack of interest in them, and looked to the platform. The priest now stood near the pulpit, with a short line of people before him. I walked away to join the line, leaving the pious family. I looked at Wendy, then, from across the place.—How well she blended in, with her seasoned facade of straightness and religious devotion. I felt, as always, a mixture of awe and aversion to it.

Our eyes met. I think we both looked away as quickly as the other.

The pace of people's departure was quite fast. By the time my turn with the priest came, only a few people beside the family lingered in the church.

"You returned, my dear," the old priest said. He rested a sympathetic hand on my shoulder. "Tell me, did you find your friend?"

I shook my head. "Were they here today?"

"I'm afraid not. Oh—" He raised his bushy brows. "But there was another man I had never seen before. You see, in a little town like this, I usually know every one of my people."

"What did he look like?"

"Quite tall. That's the only thing I could perceive from the pulpit. He came in, in the middle of the service and sat—" He gaze shifted in the direction of the front door. "Why, he's still there."

I turned around, and saw a tall man walk up the aisle, towards us. He had his hands stuck in his pockets of his lengthy jacket, which covered a large proportion of his figure. The flat cap on his head cast shadow on his face. Still, I would've recognized the ghostly gait from miles and miles away. And when he raised his face a little, I saw his patchy white beard. The malice in his eyes shone, glaring at me as he neared.

I barely heard the priest ask if I knew him, before charging at Arden. I grabbed him by the collar, and he by my wrists.

"Where is she?" I said.

He tore himself away, said nothing.

"Where is she, goddammit!" I went to fling myself on him again, but Wendy physically held me back. I still yelled and struggled.

"But, dear, he isn't the man you're looking for," the priest said from behind.

"He has her, I know it!" I swung my fists. "He must be keeping her in a cage in his filthy laboratory!"

"How funny," Arden said at last, fixing his collar. "When that haughty woman and her impotent subordinates have been searching for you everywhere, I, of all people, should find you in the least thinkable place."

"Cut the crap and release her! You old son of a—"

"And why should I, if she really was with me?" he said. "To be with me or not to be with me, it's her decision. Not mine. I have never compelled her to do anything."

"Bullshit."

"Your opinions are of no importance. Before her departure to Washington, I told her to come back whenever she wished, whenever she found the life there dire and unbearable. If she vanished from your care, you must've given her a reason to do so."

Everything about him, in that moment, made my blood boil. I felt my limbs move of their own accord, trying to reach him, but in vain. Wendy kept her arms around my waist, and shouted something next to my ear. I couldn't hear. I kept roaring. I saw nothing but the foul curl of his lips.

Arden took one step closer to me, enough for me to see his blemished skin. "Just be glad that your incompetence didn't result in your own death. I'd still be cautious if I were you, however," he said in a hushed tone, as though aware of the presence of an invisible power. He fixed his hat. He began to walk away, but then stopped. "Don't think to follow me," he said. "You won't find her where I go."

I longed to kick him in the arrogant broad of his back. My leg actually did give one of the chairs a kick, as I fought under Wendy's restraint. The hollow sound of the chair resounded, followed by a cry of lamentation from the priest. My shouts drowned out all the sounds. When the old grand door shut with a squeak, I freed myself, and rushed outside. He had crossed the street, and now was about to round the corner.

I ran in the opposite direction, pushing my way through the weekend crowds, to where our car was.

I ran, but I couldn't feel my legs. And even as the car came into view, came close, my legs failed to receive the commands from my brain. I ran into the car. I turned around, then saw Wendy trotting after me.

"Give me the car key." I held out my hand.

She looked slightly out of breath. As her hand went into her purse, she turned her head back. "That's Arden, isn't it?" she said, handing me the key. "I've seen him before."

"Why the fuck does that matter now?" I snatched it out of her hand the second I saw it, and jumped into the car. The moment I inserted it in the ignition, however, Wendy's hand reached to pulled it out. "Hey—"

"You can't drive when you're so _out of your mind_ ," she said.

"Then I'll run him over!" I slammed my fist into the wheel. "Don't take it away from me! I need to save Mary Eunice!"

"I know—"

"No, you don't know shit!"

"Lana!" The heat of her hands cupped my cheeks, and she made me look at her. Then, with a thumb, she caressed my cheek.

I became aware of the tears streaming down my face. I was on the brink of hyperventilation.

"Lana, listen to me," she said. "I've seen him before, a couple of times this week. This week. Not at Briarcliff."

I still struggled to regulate my breath. "Who? Arden?"

She gave a nod. "I remember because it was painfully obvious he didn't belong here. And I got worried, suspicious, too. He walked around the town like he had no direction, like he was lost. But I think he was looking for something . . . someone. And he was obviously not interested in bringing you back."

I looked out the window, looked at the town that Arden had disappeared into.

"And, what was he doing in the church?" she said. "I mean, you said he isn't a religious person."

"No, he hates God," I said. And the picture at once gained clarity before my eyes. "He's looking for Mary Eunice, too."

It seemed to be the only explanation. They knew Mary didn't go to Washington. Arden must've figured out where I lived—most likely by stealing my patient file from Jude's office—and come to see Mary. I refused to imagine what he planned to do with her, if he really found her. But so far, his plan hadn't been successful. And what we had seen inside the church was him lying through his teeth, concealing his failed attempts. Bullshit. He was literally bullshitting.

"He realized she wasn't with me," I said. "But he couldn't admit that he had no clue, either."

"And perhaps to torture you with the idea that he has her."

"Torture me, yeah. But, if Arden doesn't have her, who does?" I said. "Is it possible that Monsignor Howard is hiding her from Arden?" I looked at Wendy.

Her black eyes bored a hole in the glove box, as she bit her fingernails, lost in thoughts. "Lana, have you considered that . . ." Her eyes closed, brows drawing closer.

"Consider what?"

She wet her lips. "That she really did run away."

"No."

"I know you don't want to think so," she said, as she finally turned to me. "But maybe Arden is right about this. She might have a reason to—"

"What kind of reason," I said, "would be good enough for this?" I laid my hands on the wheel, pushing tears back in. But my voice cracked, and betrayed me. "What kind of reason? I'm dying with worry here. And— She said she'd talk to me. Why would she make a promise, if she knew she couldn't keep it? Nothing makes sense."

"I think it's something I said to her," Wendy said. "Some mean stuff."

I shook my head. "No, she worked for the meanest woman for five years. You couldn't have made her run away that easily."

"But, I think, I instigated it, her to leave."

"Instigated? What did you say?"

She faltered. "Some things, about her being a big burden on you."

I felt myself go pale at once. "What? When did this happen? Why don't I know this?"

"Some nights ago," she said. "You were writing in the bedroom. I just couldn't stand it. She was consuming your life, day and night, when you needed recovery yourself. So, I told her to stop playing the victim. I— I never expected her to disappear like this."

I couldn't believe my ears, nor could I find a word. I sat there, dumbfounded. And as clarity creeped back, I saw my own—as Arden put it eloquently—incompetence as Mary's sworn protector. I knew which night Wendy meant. It was the night before her disappearance, the night I decided to go to the police station in the next morning. I'd had a bowl of bean soup without upsetting my stomach, and felt a surge of motivation. I'd spread my roots in front of my desk, up to my ears in pyramids of notes. The low temperature of the night had not bothered me then. I was feeling calm, and alive, and so, so oblivious.

I had failed her.

My selfish passion ruined her life. That was the simple truth. The simplest reality that could've been altered by a simple, single action. Now, I didn't even know if I could have a chance for atonement. I felt my breath grow shallower, my nails dig into my palms. Then, within me, I felt the regret turn into self-blame, which turned into self-loathing, and when the vile pus swelled the inside of me in a flash, it broke the skin and exploded.

"I told you to be kind to her," I said. I burst into tears. "I told you she was fragile like that _many_ times, didn't I, Wendy? Didn't I?!" I felt hot all over.

She kept her gaze on her lap.

"I asked nothing from you, but to be her friend. You know we were her only home."

"You," she said, in a calm tone. " _You_ were her only home. I never was."

"Because you never tried. You could've been if you—"

"No, it wouldn't have mattered. She only saw you." Her lips quivered into a ghost of a smile. "And you only saw her. There was a world between you two that I couldn't enter. A world nobody else could touch." And the moment the smile faltered, she buried her face in her hands. One stifled sob slipped through her fingers. "Did you ever think of me in that place?" she said, "or have she completely replaced me?"

I recoiled in bewilderment. "Of course, I thought of you," I said, with a sore throat. "I came back, didn't I?"

"You came back because she wanted you to! You said that!" Her face, as she revealed it to me, glistened with violent stream of tears. "You wouldn't have come to me if it wasn't for her. You said that yourself, in that shitty motel room! And I've been frightened since that night, the minute you came home. Everyday, I wake up with dread that this might be the day you tell me you don't need me anymore and leave with her. And I can't sleep at night because I know it will happen one day."

"Wendy," I said, and rested my hand on her shoulder.

But she drew back, as if my touch burned. "I know it will. And— Do you have any idea how it feels to be more certain of it every time I see the way you look at her and talk about her?" She took a deep, trembling breath. "You look at her like you used to look at me."

For a moment, I struggled to understand the meaning of it. Then, when it dawned on me, I couldn't decide whether to blush or go pale.

 _Like darn Romeo and Juliet . . ._

"But, we aren't like that," I said.

"It's you against everyone in town," she said, wiping her tears away. "People now know who you are, _what_ you are. And they think Mary Eunice is your _lover_." Her face contorted, as she spat out the last word. "Who am I, then? Who am I? She killed me! But you want me to look after her, instead of avenging me."

"I told you I would never take sides."

"That's a lie!" she said. "You've been on her side since the beginning! Every time you open your mouth, it's about Mary Eunice, as though I'm nothing! I hope she never comes back. I should be glad she's gone!"

Something in me broke, with a fragile crashing sound.

"I'm only doing what you failed to do for me," I said, "because I know what it's like to be abandoned, given upon. She killed you? You are the one who killed us!" My own cries rang inside my head, and aggravated the spinning of it. "I'll tell you who you are," I said. "You are Gwendoline Peyser, the woman whom I've loved for five years, and who, despite that, tossed me like a piece of trash."

"I made a mistake! Why is it so wrong to be afraid?"

"It's not! But how am I supposed to feel when you're still ashamed of us?"

"I—"

"Yes, you are ashamed. Don't you _fucking_ dare deny it. I've seen it. Nothing has changed. And it makes me feel like— If they threatened you again, you might make the same mistake. And, there will be no Mary Eunice to keep me from going insane this time, to keep me from hating you."

My confession wrenched a unifying sob from both of us. Then, we fell into a crevice of trance-like silence at once, momentarily growing numb to the presence of the other in the blankness. Wendy said no more. Even if she had, I couldn't have heard her any longer, I think. I asked for the car key, and we drove home.


	31. Chapter 31

**A/N:** Hi everybodys. Since I posted the last chapter, I've received some reviews that I hadn't quite expected. I understand some of you are angry with Wendy, some even feel annoyed. This took me by surprise because I, as the author, don't really view Wendy as a "bad guy". She's jealous. Yes. But Lana is as much at fault as Wendy, and so is Mary, in my humble opinion. But I'm interested in what you guys think. Do you see Wendy as a villain? Do you relate to her? Send your opinions in!

* * *

It only took little time before I was back in the car, back to my search. Without much recognition to my own physical movement, I continued to hit the gas pedal. The same depressing routines of the search exhausted my time, my energy, and the gas. But I didn't have any other way to drown out the voices inside my head.

The shades of night began to fall on the town. I drove as though to run away from it, and as artificial lights replaced the sunlight completely, I felt like a refugee that had no place to run to.

When I came to my senses, I found myself standing inside the church, the place that started it all. There was nobody else but me and the statue of Jesus behind the pulpit. Only the two of us. No Mary Eunice. The air slept in quietness. It allowed me to hear the faint humming of the tungsten lamps on the walls. The soft glow lit the face of Jesus from below, painting him orage, casting shadow on his chiseled features. I felt scared of looking him in the eye. I looked down at my toes.

I wanted to turn on my heels. I felt so out of place here, felt so condemned. But I couldn't go home, not yet. So, with my eyes following the movement of my own legs, I walked further in, and sat inside the confessional. It felt awfully suffocating. The tungsten lights buzzed even inside there. I felt like the walls were closing in on me, inch by inch.

I stayed in there for a semi-eternity, floating in the place between the conscious world and the other. Then, I heard gentle footsteps from the other side of the closed curtain. He came straight to me, and walked into the next compartment.

The lattice opening on my left slid open.

"What has brought you here tonight, my child?"

I said I didn't know.

"You must have a reason within you. Your conscience is seeking penance. Let us listen to it."

"I don't believe in God."

"Then," he said, in a gentle tone, "what has made you sit here for so long?"

"I'm . . . I thought I could find her here," I said. "Maybe not herself, but some trace of her."

"Have you found any?"

"Only that I'm the biggest failure." My own words stabbed my heart like a dagger. And as I bent myself forward in the chair, I buried my head in my hands.

"Have you refused to rise? Have you given upon the ones you love? My child, no man is free from failure, not even Jesus himself was."

My sobs echoed inside the confined compartment. "But what if it was too late?" I said. "I couldn't protect her and let her down, all because I was weak."

"Weakness is not a sin. God will forgive you—"

"It's not His forgiveness I want. It's _hers_." My hands became soaked, as I wiped tears away. And I momentarily wondered how much I had cried in the last few days. Quite a lot. Mary had made me like this, a crybaby. My tears used to be a rare sight, and now, I didn't even know how to stop them. "How could she have survived with this empty feeling her entire life? I'm useless and want to just disappear. I can't keep a single promise. Those people I have to protect, they only make it clearer how incapable I am."

All the empty promises that had ever left my lips rang inside my head. They haunted me, whispering to the quick of my heart. They had the faces of Kit, Grace, their unborn child, Mary Eunice, and the blurry face of Alex I had never seen.

"Why is it that the more they need me, the weaker I grow?" I said. "Isn't it supposed to be the opposite?"

"My child, you mustn't forget that we're not God, but merely His children. Weakness is an inevitable part of our lives."

"Then, I want to be God," I said. "If I couldn't protect them, I don't want to be a human anymore."

There was silence on the other side for some moments. What sort of expression he had, I couldn't see through the lattice. The only thing I knew for certain, was that he couldn't offer what I needed. It is hard to find what one needs, when she has no clue what she needs. I collected myself, stood up, and reached for the curtain.

"Perhaps," he said, "this may sound harsh. But, have you thought that you give yourself too much credit, and give others too less of it?"

"What do you mean?"

"You feel you're the only one that could save them, that they're too weak on their own. You see, it is arrogance, though not the conventional kind, to wish to save everyone. It is to think they are helpless without you. But what differentiates you and them? Nothing, perhaps not even the desire to be strong for their loved ones."

"So what? I shouldn't try to protect them?"

"Have faith in them," he said. "You only have one heart, and can only hold so much in your hands. Let them hold some in their own hands."

ooOooOoo

I woke up in the guest room—Mary's bedroom—the next morning. I had not had the courage to see Wendy, even in her sleep. The bed smelt of Mary, her unique scent blended with our shared shampoo. If I closed my eyes, I could easily imagine her lying beside me, her golden hair sprawled across the pillow and tickling me in the cheek.

The sun shone bright behind the closed blinds. Sunlight came through the gaps of them. I stared at the horizontal strips of light on the carpeted floor, and watched them slowly move, as the sun moved, for a long time. Then, at length, I got up, stood in the center of the room, and looked around.

The room was the embodiment of neatness, with so few traces of human dwelling. It looked like a room of a show house. Something about it exacerbated my unease. I hadn't had any energy left to take notice of this last night, or rather, this morning, when I'd returned from the church. Her giant duffle bag sat in one corner, in the shadow. It had everything in it, things she had brought from Briarcliff, as though she was ready to leave here whenever.

I realized what the room represented was not neatness, but emptiness. People who grew up in the system, Mary had once told me, have the tendency to remain unattached to the place they live. Moving from a place to another, you learn that at any moment, the door could open and people could give upon you. Just like that. As the despair and uncertainty of abandonment becomes familiar, you learn the most efficient way to live is to never unpack. To Mary Eunice, this house was a temporary shelter.

But, this also meant that, if her disappearance was her own decision, she could easily have taken the bag with her. This meant she hadn't expected her own dissapearance. No, Wendy was wrong.

I placed the contents of the bag across the bed, searching for a clue. Two habits, two veils, pairs of stockings, and some underwear. Besides the monochrome clothing, there was only a little overused pouch. I'd seen a twenty-dollar bill pulled out of it before, like a rabbit out of a top hat, in the decrepit motel. Now, it was empty, having lost its magic.

I began to put them back in the bag. It was then the things on the nightstand caught my eyes. An empty bottle of Cola I had bought her on the first day of her new life. And the Bible.

Of all her belongings, in this house of us _the sinful_ , the holy book sat with the greatest ease. The simple sight of it stupefied me at first. During my confinement at Briarcliff, I had never seen the book anywhere, even at the morning prayers. She must have read it everyday, as she used to do, and perhaps wanted it close to her when she slept. I ran my finger along the edge of its leather cover. It was tattered, the top corner missing. It felt warm, as I rested my hand on it. Years of usage had turned the edge of the pages dirty yellow, too.

I noticed, then, a narrow, but still evident gap between the pages. I opened the book. It revealed the culprit of the gap without effort. One crumpled piece of paper lay on the weathered pages. I picked it up, and flipped it over.

 _-I'll hold on to the world tight someday. I've got one finger on it now; that's a beginning.-_

Waves of shivers hit me from head to toe, washing away the remaining drowsiness in me. I examined the note, both sides of it, at least three times. Then I read the words again.—It was _my_ letter, the first note I'd ever written to Alex.

I riffled through the Bible. The pages generated a soft puff of air. Between the end paper and the back cover, I found two sheets of paper, faintly pink, folded into two. Letter pads. They shared nothing in common with the one in my grip. They had no wrinkle, no spot of ink on the side visible to me. But I could see a number of wiggly lines of ink on the inside. I hesitated to open them, feeling a slight sense of shame for violating her privacy. Still, I did, with much reserve, and took a peek.

 _My dear half moon,_ the beginning of the letter said.

It only took the single sentence, for the rate of my heart to skyrocket. And I traced these letters with my finger. The handwriting had the delicateness, the sacredness, that I had grown familiar with. I used to look at it on the notes, in moonlight, as I waited for Mary's midnight visit. And I had lamented, when I realized those notes would sleep inside the old mattress until the end.

Had this been only the handwriting, there might have been room for doubt. But Mary addressed this to her half moon.—Me. I knew it was me, even though Alex had never called me that.

How strange life is! I had two people, equally dear to me, in that horrid place. And my heart ached every day that I had chosen one over the other. I felt overwhelmed. And I laughed at myself for naming her Alex. It didn't fit her even a bit.

I sat on the bed to read the rest of the letter.

 _My dear half moon,_

 _I know you will never read this letter, but I couldn't help my impulse. There was no one else to talk to. But I need to apologize beforehand, because I know you are angry with me for leaving you behind. It was not my plan to do so. It was Sister Jude. She somehow saw my letter to you and recognized my handwriting. She searched my room in my absence, and found your letters I collected in my drawer, too. I think she knew who you are, though she never told me. And that evening, I was told to leave Briarcliff. She was sending me away to Washington state._

 _But I didn't go where I was destined for. I ran away. Yes, you must have heard by now about my escaping, and if you have, then you must know I didn't go alone. I went with my protector. She is the only person I trust with my life, besides you, of course. So, I had no fear. Whatever might happen, I thought I'd be happy by her side._

 _I don't know. Sister Jude would say people have it worse than I do, and she'd be right. I should be happy. But her world is immense, with people and places I don't know. It is a world that have existed and functioned well without me for a long time. And it cannot coexist with my world, apparently. Sometimes, when I hear her talk about Briarcliff and the Lord, it makes me feel even smaller. Her voice grows very venomous. She talks about the Lord like he is her enemy. I could never blame her, I know, but I was once part of the world she so loathes. I wonder if she ever realizes that, when she laughs at the Lord in front of me. It still hurts, because part of me still loves Sister Jude and Briarcliff. Those are the moments I feel the loneliest, like I'm a tiny fish swimming in the cold, dark ocean alone. She said I had a lot of things to learn. I know I'm stupid, and I'd never be as smart as she is. I feel utterly insignificant in her world. But isn't it laughable that I, who used to be content with being in the corner of her life, now want more? She makes me greedier. She makes me wish I was the center of her world. I wish you could tell me what to do with these feelings, when she's already my whole world._

 _I'm terrified what would happen after the case is settled. She tells me she needs me for solving the case, but what happens after that? I don't have any other use. She put away our pocket watch and coat, like they had never been important to her. It frightens me that I might be next. If there ever comes a day she no longer needs me, then it will be the day I lose the reason to live._

 _I miss the screams of people, but I can never go back to Briarcliff. I'm so sorry. I wish I had the strength to save you. Please, forgive me. Please, remember me, as I will remember you._

 _-M.E.M_

The letter had ink smudges here and there. My own tears spilled over my bottom eyelashes, and pattered on the pink surface. The ink dissolved in the small pools of salt, swirling. Scream-like sobs tore from my throat. I covered my mouth with both of my hands, but the sound escaped nonetheless. I felt sick. Floods of thoughts inundated my inside, as the tear-stained face of Mary Eunice flashed before my eyes.

Her eyes! Those sparks! I covered my eyes, to escape to darkness. The pale blue of her eyes still remained there, with such vividness. It was the color of heaven, if it really existed. It was the color of condemnation. I drowned myself in my wails, so loud I barely heard when the door opened. Wendy rushed in, pulled me into her warmth.

"What's wrong? What happened?" she asked. Her hands cupped my soaked cheeks.

I could only clutch the letter to my heart. The spinning of my head, and my world, made my nausea worse. And my whimpers grew into guttural growls, when Wendy's fingers brushed against the letter in my grip. Even then, tears continued to stream down my face. She asked what the letter said, several times. I only answered to her with violent shakes of the head. I must've looked like an animal, heavily wounded, clueless as to why it hurts so much. Any reaching hand, in that moment, was a potential threat.

I got up. With my narrowing sight, I felt my way out of the room.

"Lana, where are you going?" Wendy said, following me. When I didn't answer, she repeated the question.

I returned to my bedroom, stumbled deep into the closet, and put on Mary's coat. It had absorbed the scent of the house. "Briarcliff," I said, "I gotta go to Briarcliff."

"I told you, I'm not letting you."

I didn't dare to look at her face. "Because you don't want her back," I said, and walked past her, to the hallway.

"This— This isn't about me or her. I meant what I said to you over the phone. If you go back, and get caught, that's it. That's the end."

"Without me, this might be her end."

"We still don't know if she's at Briarcliff. Or, does that letter say so?"

"No."

"Then stay!"

I grabbed the car key off the entry table. "But she's not here," I said. I looked up, at last, and met her dark eyes. "She may not be there, like you say. But there's still a slight possibility that she is. That 0.01% is enough for me."

* * *

 **I hope it was worth the wait. Also, big thanks to Anna Banana!**


	32. Chapter 32

**Tw** : a mention of sexual assault.

* * *

I turned to the door. But before the first step towards it, I turned around and walked up to her. Her flushed face grew paler. She knew this was not my surrender, knew it was the opposite of it. And as I wrapped my arms around her neck, her shoulders slumped. I kissed her. One soft, simple kiss on the lips.

"I love you," I said.

She nodded. Her forehead rested against mine. Her hands came up to stroke my hair. "I'm so sorry."

I squeezed her tighter in my arms. "I can't forgive you," I said. "It's not mine to forgive."

"I know. I just want you to understand that I am." Her warm breath left ghosts of kisses on my neck. "You were right, Lana, about me being ashamed. But not of us, _never_. But of myself, of my own cowardice. And Mary Eunice— I could see how much faith she had in you, like you are her everything."

I shuddered in her embrace.

"I felt so inferior," she said, in a trembling voice. "She cries, but she's braver than I'd ever be. She would throw away everything else to be with you. She _did_ throw away everything for you." She buried her face deeper in my neck. "And I envy her, because even now, I can't say if I could do the same for you. But she wouldn't hesitate. She would keep standing tall even when people murmur behind her back. She wouldn't lie to her coworkers and call you her roommate. She'd do anything to protect you."

I felt a lump in my throat. We stood in silence, with sobs and whimpers filling the blanks. All I could do, in my incapacity, was to hold the small body of hers. I held her tight. If I could pull her close enough, I thought, her sorrow could flow into me.

"I love you," I said. And I said it again, giving her a kiss, in place of an apology. "If— When Mary comes back, we'll talk. Three of us. I want to give you both what you want, what you deserve."

I began to pull away. But her hold tightened around my waist.

"Wait. Don't go."

"Wendy—"

"I'll go. Let me go see around Briarcliff and look for her. As a visitor, I'll be safer than you just sneaking around."

"But you wouldn't know where to look."

"Tell me, and I'll look." She clasped her hands around mine. Her lips kissed the back of my hand. "Please, I'm begging you, don't go back there. I can't let you cross the threshold, knowing what they could do to you."

Her tears wavered my resolution. Still, I felt the teeth of the car key dig into my palm. "What excuse would you give them?" I said. "They know your face."

"I'll figure it out. Just say yes." She tried to pry open my hand, fingers touching the car key.

"I don't know. God, I don't know." I looked down. "What could you possibly tell them? Jude _murdered_ me. There can't be a reason for you to be there."

She cast her gaze down. Silence surrounded us, as she furrowed her brow in thought. The swollen skin around her eyes glistened with tears. Her raven eyelashes seemed even thicker, more black. She looked beautiful.

I raised my hand, to give her one more kiss before my departure. But in that moment, she looked up. Her eyes had a new glint in them. She gave me a sudden pull.

"I think I know what to do," she said, in a lighter tone. "I could say I came for you."

I knitted my brows, perplexed.

"Haven't you wondered why nobody has come to this place since you came back? It's suspicious. If I were Jude, I would look here before anywhere else."

"Well, yeah, it is weird," I said.

"I've been thinking about that. And I realized she can't, because that would mean looking for a dead person. Like you said, she told me that you had died. Unless she has absolute certainty that _I know_ about her lie, she needs to be consistent with her own lie. And if she wants to come here, to me, she must admit to lying." Her eyes crinkled up, as she blinked her tears away. "Do you see it? It came full circle."

I gave a slow nod. "A lie she had created out of desperation ended up being her ultimate dead end," I said. "But how is this going to help us in this situation?"

"Well, when she informed me of your death, I asked to see your death certificate. But there was none. They hadn't gotten a doctor to sign the paper."

"Because it was a spontaneous lie."

She nodded. "Jude told me to come back if I wanted a copy. They have to have gotten all of the fake documents ready for me by now."

I understood her plan, then. "But," I said, with a heavy heart, "it's been more than two weeks."

"I'll tell her I've been busy with other stuff." She shrugged her shoulders. "She may laugh that I don't care about you enough. I'll let her." Her eyes rose, and looked straight into mine. "This should be a good enough excuse, right? That's all I care about."

At last, I agreed to her offer. I think the desperation had driven both of us mad. But in the moment, it seemed the most rational solution. I drew the basic structure of the institution for her, then. I taught her which staff members to use and to avoid, which inmates to rely on. As much information as possible in limited time.

"I told you about Kit. You've seen his face in the newspaper," I said. "There'll be a pregnant girl beside him. That's Grace. You can trust them. And tell them, if you could, that I have never given upon them."

She pressed her lips to my cheek. "We'll find her," she said.

I parroted her words, in her arms, as though it was a mantra. Some dark shadow of fearful uncertainty and self-doubt floated around us. It contaminated our lungs. I felt my lips tingle, desperate to say the unsaid. The taboo words.

 _If Mary wasn't there . . ._

 _If something happened to Wendy . . ._

 _If everything was too late . . ._

We both swallowed those words, and sealed our lips with kisses. After countless exchange of silent embraces, I let her go at last. As the sound of the engine grew further away, I regretted not giving her one more kiss.

###

The weight of waiting came upon me, then, crushing me under an inevitable sense of guilt. Seconds ticked in a punishing rhythm. I felt stifled in my own inactivity, in my role of a passive sufferer. It hurt less to be in solitary after a series of lashes. It was always the case with pain. Physical pain always hurt less than the smallest sting in your heart.

Some people might pray in situations like this, but I never believed in it. Besides, what was there to pray to the being, who had allowed all the suffering in our lives?

Instead of depending on such unreliable actions, I decided to write. At first, the ticking of the wallclock irritated me, disturbed my concentration. Although I had a rough draft ready, my fingers would often hover over the keyboard of my beloved typewriter. I'd stare at my notes, at my draft. Then I'd look at the clock every time I reached the end of a line. A mountain of cigarette butts filled my ashtray soon. But at some point, I got absorbed in the lines of ink and the repetitive sounds of the stamps striking against the paper. It felt like hypnosis. I don't remember when it happened. The dinging noise of the typewriter grew to feel like part of my heartbeat. And when I realized I had a dead cigarette between my lips, the world outside was dark.

My shoulders cried out, as I stretched in the seat. I reached for my mug to alleviate the itchy dryness of my throat, but it was empty. I didn't remember finishing it. I lay in the bed, then, for a short rest.

It felt like, as soon as my eyes closed, I began to dream. I dreamed that I was still at Briarcliff, dreamed about Mary and her pale eyes. I chased her, but she kept running away, slipping through my fingers. My own sobs echoed in the dark. Then, the subconscious world brought me to a different realm, equally unpleasant and nightmarish. I was standing in my old office at the Gazette. Everything looked like a noir film, with no more than two colors. Moschella yelled at me, for the cooking column I wrote, inventing a variety of degrading insults as he went. His voice echoed through the whole universe. His saliva travelled through the air somehow, and splashed on my face. A telephone rang somewhere, once, twice. Moschella yelled me to pick it. But I couldn't seem to locate the source of the sound.

I opened my eyes, and stared at the ceiling in the dark bedroom. The phone continued to ring. The fogs inside my head lingered. With the squeaky voice of Moschella still clear in my ears, I got up, wobbling my way to the phone. I struggled to pull myself out of the dimension between the reality and dream, and as I picked the phone, I thought it would be Moschella on the other side.

"Hello?" I used the most spiteful voice.

"Sorry to bother you so late at night," the person said, with the slightest lisp. "I'm looking for Miss Lana Winters."

It served as a light slap in the cheek for me. The man on the other side sounded nothing like the pig of a man. I straightened my back.

"This is she."

The man introduced himself as Detective Castelo. "I'm calling from St. Luke's Hospital. We have a young lady under our protection. Her name is Mary McKee, and she's asking for you. Do you know her?"

The pulsation of my sluggish heart got faster in a flash. I felt sweat spurt out from every pore. The plastic of the receiver gave a creak in my tightening grip. My own voice contained a peculiar tremor, as I told him I'd be on my way. I almost slammed the receiver down, before he could tell me the room number.

"The front entrance is locked," he said, "but I'll ask the security to let you in."

I put down the phone with deliberate gentleness. I ran back to the bedroom. "Wendy, they've found Mary Eunice!"

But the bed had grown cold without my presence. It came to me, then, that she hadn't returned. I looked out the window. My heart sank deeper at the sight of the empty driveway. I trotted back to the telephone. After stubbing my toe on the stand in the dark, I turned on the lamp there, and dialed Barbara's number. It was only then I saw the clock next to the telephone. A quarter to nine o'clock.

Barb pulled over the house in less than ten minutes. And it took another ten or fifteen minutes to get to St. Luke's. Despite the time, despite my obvious impatience, she did not ask anything. She only offered, in front of the hospital's entrance, to wait for us.

"We'll get a cab," I said.

.

The security guard—a stout, tanned man that resembled Spivey—didn't bother to escort me to the room. He just waved his flashlight, pointing towards the staircase with it.

In the dark hospital, the patter of my footsteps bounced off the walls. Cold air entered through cracks of the staircase window, whistling. At the top of the stairs on the second floor, I looked to the right. There was no light. Then I looked to the left, and saw a shaft of light across the floor, coming through the crack of a door. Two men in suits stood in front of the door. The taller one leaned against the wall, reading his newspaper in the scarce light, while the other scrawny man smoked a cigarette. I walked to them. The gaze of the taller man rose.

"Miss Winters?" he said with a lisp, folding up the newspaper.

I nodded, as I quickened my step. "What's going on? Is she okay?"

Without a response, they knocked on the door, peeped in, and slid the door open wide for me.

I stepped in. The room was no bigger than a cell in Briarcliff. In a couple of steps away, a white bed occupied most of the place. Mary Eunice sat in it, with her eyes looking straight at me. I let out a cry. I ran into her arms, held her as tightly as she did. All of my being trembled in a whirl of emotions. Unintelligible mumbling came out of my mouth, and eventually, I grew aware that I was _thanking God_.

I looked at her face then, red with tears, but with no scar or bruise. But something didn't feel quite right, something alarming and different. When I pulled away a little more, I found out what it was.—Some strands of her blonde hair, only on the left side of her head, were shorter than the rest. I shuddered. It looked as though somebody had cut that part with plain paper scissors.

"What happened?" I said, terrified to touch it.

She opened her mouth. No word came out. Her lip quivered, as she looked down again.

"A driver found her passed out in the middle of the street last night," the scrawny officer said, leaning against the door frame. "She had no ID. There was no missing person report on her. We had to wait until she woke up."

"Passed out?" I looked back at Mary.

The taller officer with a lisp moved the bedside chair further from us, and took a seat. Out of his jacket he pulled a pen and a notebook. "I'm Detective Castelo," he said both to me and Mary. He then gestured at the other man with his pen. "That's my partner, Detective Barren. We understand you need more quiet time, but we'd like to ask you a few questions." He talked to Mary like a big brother talking to his little sister.

Still, Mary acted like a frightened child. Her eyes studied both of the men with timidity, and came back to me.

I caressed the back of her hand. "Let's trust them. I need to know who did this to you," I said to her. When she showed lingering hesitation, I looked at Castelo. "We've had a little distasteful experiences with the police not so long ago."

The young man apologized.

"You were found barefooted with nothing but a thin gown on," Barren said, "and marks around your ankle, evidently left by some kind of restraints. Also, drenched from head to toe. We have to investigate whether you're willing or not."

"What he means," Castelo said, with a forced smile, "is that he, too, is on your side. You might be confused still, but can you tell us what you can remember?"

Mary's nails almost dug into my palm. "I remember . . . I remember talking to Father." Her face looked blank. Her voice had a bizarre, rather alarming calmness.

"Your father?" Castelo asked.

"The priest at the church in downtown," I said.

"There was a man. He talked to me after my confession. Then . . . I don't know. I woke up alone in a strange place."

"Could you describe that place? Do you remember how the man looked, or what you talked about?" Castelo was leaning forward in his seat.

Mary shuddered with violent force. She brought her knees close to her chest, curled up in a ball. "I don't remember . . . He seemed familiar and was really friendly. But when I woke up, I was chained to a bed."

All this revelation so far almost left me speechless. It took all my might to hold her hand tight. The latest piece of information, especially, boiled and froze my blood. Still, I managed to tell them the description of the young man the priest had seen. When they sought confirmation from Mary, she only gave them a nod.

"And, what happened?" Barren scratched his large forehead, with his cigarette still between his fingers.

"He came back later, to that chamber," Mary said. Her eyes kept staring into space. "Everything was white and so shiny. The walls and the floor, the curtains . . . His tie was dark green."

"Did he say anything to you?" Castelo asked.

"I asked him to let me go, but he refused. He said—" She trembled again, and at last, burst into tears. "Said he was going to kill me and skin me."

I pulled her into my arms, and we trembled as one.

"Skin you? Was that his exact wording?" Barren said, with his googly eyes wide.

Mary gave an affirmative nod.

Barren exchanged a look with Castelo, then brought the cigarette to his mouth. The creases in his forehead deepened. "How'd you escape?" he said.

The quiver of her lip grew intense. "He— He had a syringe in his hand, with some chemical in it to stop my heart," she said, and shrank even smaller. "I fought back, and I think I stabbed him with the needle . . . or he hit his head against something. I don't know."

"And you ran?" Castelo said. "Do you remember where that place is, like how far from where you were found?"

Mary shook her head. "I don't think I ran a long distance. There was— There was a swimming pool . . . A big one, in the back yard. I fell into it. Then, I suppose I fainted running."

The two men exchanged another glance. Without a word, Barren pushed himself off the doorframe, and walked away.

Castelo looked at Mary with a sympathetic expression. "And, he did that?" He gestured to her hair.

Her hand rose to it. "After he caught me trying to escape. He said he knew ways to hurt me without bruising my skin. He grabbed me by the hair and, with a pocket knife, cut my hair. And he— He cut my clothes off, too." Silent tears streamed down her face, wetting her quivering lip.

"And he violated you," Castelo said, as though stating a fact.

Her answer was a simple shudder of her body. Then, as if a bolt of lightning just struck her, she looked up at me. "Your dress. It was yours." And she apologized.

She apologized! I felt a tight squeeze in my heart. My eyes brimmed with thick tears, in the way blood oozes from a wound. I felt a great sense of shame and guilt, for having allowed this to happen, for making her feel the need to apologize. And it hit me hard that, to her, her very life and my clothes had the same value. The tormenting feelings only grew more vile, then, produced more pus inside my heart.

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 **A/N:** Thank you for the feedbacks poeples. Keep them coming in! Also, you guys have to wait to strangle me until the story ends, otherwise there won't be any more of this ;D


	33. Chapter 33

Castelo promised to investigate the case, and said it might not take so long before they could give us updates. The weight of Mary leaned against me, as we walked through the hospital halls. At the dim reception desk, I saw Barren talking on the telephone. The smoke of his cigarette twirled up in the air. I momentarily wondered if he was supposed to smoke in here.

Castelo offered to give us a ride. The clock was about to strike eleven, when we made it home. Neither of us spoke. The house had restless stillness, like that of a graveyard at night. I led her to her room, and made her sit on the bed. I felt terrified still, as I crouched down before her, not knowing how to handle a glass doll like her.

"What do you—" I cleared my throat. My voice came out so hoarse. "Do you need anything?"

"Sleep," she said.

I laid her down, then. "I'll be in the next room," I said, as I brushed her hair out her face.

But her hollow eyes locked with mine. And even in the silence, I heard what she truly needed—what _we_ needed.

"Is it alright if I stay with you?"

She gave a nod.

Nothing felt weird or strange about this. I crawled under the blankets, felt her warmth flush against me, as if we'd done this many times before. Her hand sought mine. When our hands reunited, the gentlest sigh escaped her lips. The faint puff of air caressed my eyelashes. I fell asleep like this, with the sound of her breathing, with her heat in my hand.

.

Something woke me up. The dark of the night still remained in the room. I closed my eyes to go back to sleep. But then, in this slumber, I became conscious of the emptiness of my hand. I extended my arm, searching the other side of the bed. The sheets felt chilly, in the absence of another body. Waves of chills travelled through my limbs, and made me shiver. A lamentable sob threatened to tear from my throat. I rolled over onto my other side. In my slumberous dream, I was still searching for Mary.

But there, on the windowsill, Mary Eunice was watching the sky above. The moonlight lit her pale skin, and at each blink of her eyes, it seemed to shimmer in her long eyelashes. She had her head rested against the window. Her blonde tresses gave off rather silvery gleams, as if they absorbed the essence of the moon. She looked like something of the mystical. It felt like another dream of my desolation.

I had never seen her like this, without a veil to conceal the entirety of her head, in moonlight.

"My half moon."

She turned her head. Her eyes caught me.

It was then I realized I'd said it out loud. I got up, walked to the window, and sat beside her. The remnants of tears twinkled in her eyes .

"Couldn't sleep?" I said.

She looked down, as she shivered. "I feel like I'd be back in that chamber when I wake up." Her face contorted again, but no more tears wetted her cheeks.

There was only a face of extreme agony. It shuttered my heart. It was such a morbid thing, to run out of tears to shed, and to have the pain eat away at you. I wished I could give my tears to her. It felt better to see her try to hold them back. Her hand rose, to fiddle with her severed hair.

I took the hand into mine. "Don't," I said. And I felt the lump in my throat grow bigger. "You're beautiful."

Mary stared at me. Although her face no longer showed the familiar, accursed blankness, she only responded with silence. She cast her eyes down again.

"After he cut my hair and took my purity," she said, "death seemed better. Nothing seemed to matter anymore. I thought about hell, and that didn't scare me, either. But—" Her breath came out shaky. "But I thought of you, and all the things I hadn't told you." Then, when she raised her face, her eyes brimmed with a new onset of tears. Pieces of moonlight danced in them, gathering life to the surface of the shell of her. She opened her mouth again, but swallowed her words.

I scooted up. I put my hand on the back of her head, and pressed my lips against her forehead. I felt a great quivering, of my lips or her skin, I couldn't tell. Perhaps both. We just stayed like this, until the quivering ceased, until her heat travelled through my lips. Her breathing grew steadier. With my eyes glued shut with tears, I rested my forehead against hers.

"I'm here," I said, "I'm here."

"Don't ever let me go. You are my world, Lana." Her voice shook, as my name lingered on the tip of her tongue. "You mean everything to me. Please, don't—"

"I know." I planted another kiss on her forehead. "I know. I read your letter."

Mary pulled away slowly. Her swollen eyes cast an uncertain eye at the nightstand.

I walked to the Bible, and returned to Mary with it. The black leather of the cover almost gleamed in iridescent blue. "I only wish—" I said. "I only wish you'd come to me, instead of writing your heart away."

She murmured an apology. She hung her head, then, as if bracing herself for a reprimand. Just like she'd always done, from the beginning of _us_. I brought the folded pink letter in the moonlight, unfolding it. The smaller note—my letter to Alex—rustled on top of the pink surface. Mary saw it. She took it between her fingers, and stared down at it. Her bangs hid the color of her eyes, but I saw her bottom lip quiver.

I tried to think of a way to tell her the truth. Nothing came to my mind. "It's from Fahrenheit 415," I said. "One of the quotes I live by."

She looked up, with light in her wide eyes. "It is? I always thought these were their own words— My friend's, I mean. This is whom I wrote that letter to."

"Your half moon."

"I don't know their real name. I just call them so, because to me, they are my other half." Then, her cheek twitched, in an ephemeral attempt to smile. "There were more letters from this person, but Sister Jude confiscated them all."

"Is it the only one left?"

She gave a heavy nod. "I had this one in the Bible, always, not in my drawer with the other ones. It's like part of the Bible to me, showing me the way when I was miserable and lost." She sighed with her shoulders, but without a noise. "I've dreamed countless times of meeting them, face to face, of telling them how much they've changed my life. But they'd never know. I chose you, when I chose to run away from Briarcliff."

At that, my heart clenched. The question, the one I had swallowed out of fear on the night of our escape, came back to me. The bitterness of it almost paralyzed my tongue. "Do you regret it, choosing this path?"

"Never," she said, without a pause. "I'd choose you, even if I had to do it again. I just miss them. I left without a goodbye. They must despise me. We were each other's only light in that place." Her gaze flew back to me. "Beside you, of course. But I met— Acquainted myself with this person before you."

Her fingers played with the note. And in that moment, I couldn't imagine anything more precious than this sight, this familiar sheepishness. It filled the inside of me with glowing warmth, the kind that perhaps went beyond words. I cupped her cheeks. Her eyes met mine.

"I'd never get envious of a person so dear to you," I said. "Plus, it takes special skills for a person to envy herself."

She tilted her head slightly in my hands, perplexed. And her knitted brows, the charms of the sight, stripped me of the remaining artfulness in me.

"I— You were the only light for me, too," I said. "It was you— Us, all along, in the dusty library. Those torn-out magazine pages. That tiny crack in the wall." My hot breath came out trembling. "And you saved my life, when you left the first note for me."

Silence surrounded us, keener than before. Through the touch, I felt Mary swallow. Then I watched the gradual, but certain process of clarity, as a new level of amazement appeared in her eyes. Her lips parted to utter something, but no word came out. She sucked air in, many times. Her eyes travelled—swaying, if a gaze could sway—to the Bible in my lap, to the nightstand, to the night sky. When those eyes returned to me, tears shone on the very lines of her bottom eyelashes. A trickle of tears overflew. It left a shimmering trail down her cheek. At the same time, a single, high-pitched sound found its way out of her throat. Not a sob, as I'd expected, but something close to a laugh. A tender smile danced across her lips.

"I was right about you," she said in a tearful voice. "You are an angel."

It was my turn to laugh through tears. "I told you, Mary, I am not. We are both humans. Mortal, but holier than angels. The holiest of all."

With a soft sigh, she flung her arms around my neck. I felt the beat of her heart, the microscopic vibration of her skin. I ran my fingers through her hair. It felt stiffer than I'd imagined it to be.

"In the letter," I said, "you said Jude found your letter and recognized your handwriting."

She nodded. "And she decided to send me away."

I remembered the freezing night. I remembered the stillness of the infirmary, the feeling of her arms around me, the heat of her tears against my neck, her blubbering, and my own heartbreak.

"It's my fault," I said. "Jude caught me in the library. I couldn't deceive her and keep the letters safe from her. But I thought I'd be the only one who'd get punished for it. I never imagined that single letter would reveal so much to her."

Mary's cheek remained still on my shoulder. She didn't utter a word. I ached to see her face.

"How long have you known," she said in my hair, "if you didn't know who I was then?"

"I only found out this afternoon, when I read the letter."

"I wish I'd known sooner. I wouldn't have had to know such a sense of guilt for running away."

"All the tears could've been saved, yes. But I don't want to call this pain a waste. It only makes my love for you deeper and stronger." I tightened my embrace, as she buried her face into my neck. "You're more important to me than you believe, Mary. More than my dignity and ambition, more than bringing down Briarcliff. Don't you ever think otherwise, I beg of you. You are—" My voice shook. "You are part of me."

She nuzzled deeper into my neck. "Don't let me go."

I didn't ask whether she meant this moment, or the rest of our lives. It didn't matter to us.

We spent the next half an hour by the window, in the shower of moonlight. It was a clear night sky. The night, when Mary had come to my cell for the first time, was just like this.

From our window, Mary showed me constellations. Her pale hand would sway in front of my face, as she drew lines in the air for me. And I would listen to her utter the names of those stars and constellations, and the stories of origins. She would turn her face to me, then, and smile with her eyes. But the glee would vanish in a blink. A crease would appear between her brows. She'd look down, but she wouldn't say a word about the source of her suffering. The hand that connected the stars would rise to look for the missing part of her hair.

She cried without a sound, at last. She cried in my chest, cried herself to sleep.

ooOooOoo

Despite all this, part of me felt undeniable relief and joy. I had her back. Mary Eunice and Alex, together in my arms. Her scars would need a lot of time to heal, some might even leave a permanent stain in her heart, but I had her under my protection. It was all the mattered.

But when the ringing of the telephone woke me up two days in a row, it came clear how wrong I was. Nothing was over, far from it. The clock on the telephone stand read quarter to ten. I let out a particularly big yawn, as I picked up the phone.

"This is Mrs. Springer from Charlemont Elementary School," the caller said.

Another yawn came out of me. For a moment, I struggled with my drowsy brain to register any of her words. Then, I vaguely remembered it was the name of the school Wendy worked at. And Mrs. Springer. The vice-principal of the school.

"Is Miss Peyser at home? We didn't get any call from her this morning. Her class was left unsupervised until one of our faculty members discovered her absence." She sounded more vexed than concerned.

"Absence?" I said.

I saw Mary come out of her room. Her half-closed eyes gave me an anxious look, as she stood next to me.

"I— Let me see if she's in her bedroom," I said to the woman, and rested the receiver on the stand.

"What's wrong?" Mary asked in a whisper.

I couldn't answer. Nothing like this had ever happened before in the past five years. When I brushed past Mary without a word, she followed me to the bedroom. With a mingled feeling of confusion and dread for the unknown, I opened the door.—The room had nobody in it. Sunlight came through the gap in the curtains. It cast a long, thin strip of golden light across the blankets, left in an unfastidious manner. I stood there for some moments. I turned around and found Mary in the doorway. And the look of equal bewilderment reminded me of Mrs. Springer on the phone, waiting for my answer. Again, I walked past her, returning to the telephone.

For the lack of a better option, I told Mrs. Springer the truth. I promised I'd give them a call when Wendy came back, and put the receiver down with both hands. At the quiet tick, my blood turned into sleet all of a sudden. While I hadn't lied to the old woman, there were certain omissions of truth. That made my vision narrower.

A hand came to rest upon my shoulder. Mary kept her silent stance, with her apprehension in her expressive eyes. But she had listened to me talk on the phone. She understood, and now looked as though she was the missing person herself.

"She left for Briarcliff yesterday," I said. "I had no idea she hadn't come home."

Mary recoiled at the name of her old home. "Why did she go there?"

"You. She went to look for you. Something must've happened."

But what exactly could have happened to her? I refused to think about it.

Then, the ear-piercing ringing of the telephone again resounded in the hall. It caught me off guard, making my heart jump, but I still managed to pick it up before the second ringing. It wasn't Mrs. Springer, however. It was Detective Castelo.

"We've made some great progress on the case," he said with his lisp. "Would you be able to come to the station today? We'd like to show you and Miss McKee a few things."


	34. Chapter 34

**A/N: This cool person on Instagram drew fantastic fanart of my humble fic! This cursed site doesn't let me write the account name. But if you go to my tumblr blog and look through the 'art' tag, you can find it.** **Everybodys go check it out :D**

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Even though I felt overwhelming anxiety about Wendy's whereabouts, Mary's case permitted no delay, either. So, we decided to go see Castelo, as we hoped Wendy would have returned home before us.

At the reception, the familiar face of the reception boy welcomed us back. His eyes narrowed at the sight of me, nose wrinkled, pink lip curled into a sneer. His lips then parted, to spit something foul at me. But before another exchange of insults began, Castelo found us, and guided us to another room. The kind detective gave the reception boy no explanation. I threw him a satisfied glance, as we walked away. No simple word could've described the expression on his pretty face! It hadn't even crossed his mind that someone in this place, in this town, would be willing to help us. But he saw it. He witnessed it with his own eyes.

In the room Castelo showed us in, his partner, Detective Barren, joined us with a cream-colored file under his arm. As soon as he sat next to Castelo, on the opposite side of us at the table, he pulled out his cigarettes. A corner of white paper stuck out from the file.

It felt suffocating. Impatience grew in me. I looked at Castelo.

With a humble smile, Castelo reached for the file in front of the old man. His countenance remained friendly, but grew a little professional, too. He repeated what he'd said to me on the phone, plus more of the formality. After that, he slid two black and white photographs across the table.

"Could you tell if this is the house you told us about last night?" he said. "The place where you were found is about half a mile from this house."

I leaned forward in my seat. One of the photos showed the front side of a white house with a dark-colored loof and door. The garage shutter was fully open, and a black car was parked in it. The other photo showed the backyard of the same house. It had a swimming pool. No leaves or branches covered the ground around the pool. Nothing floated in the water, either. It looked like someone had swum in it quite recently. The exterior of the house was the definition of American Dream, the perfection that only existed in fantasies and magazines.

Mary neither shook her head nor nodded. "I don't know," she said. "It was dark. The only thing I saw was the road ahead of me."

"There aren't many houses in that area," Barren said. "This is the only house with a swimming pool. This gotta be it." His thin, red lips barely moved as he spoke.

Castelo pulled out another photograph. "How about this man? Do you recognize him?" He put it side by side with the other two.

It looked like a picture for official documents. In a simple, clean suit, a white man looked straight into the camera from behind the thick frame of his glasses. He wore a hint of a smile. It was not Monsignor Howard.

Mary turned her face away, leaning away in her chair. A glint of tears appeared in her eyes. Her hand trembled in mine under the table.

Castelo put the photograph away in the file. "Could you confirm that this man is your capturer?"

Without looking, Mary gave them a nod.

The detectives exchanged a look. Barren stubbed his cigarette out. "His name is Oliver Thredson," he said. "A psychiatrist with quite a reputation in the community. But lately, there had been a disturbing rumor about his rather unhealthy obsession with skin. And—"

"Have you caught this guy?" I said. "Please tell me you've arrested him."

Again, there was some exchange of a loaded glance between them.

"No, we couldn't," Castelo said.

"Why?"

"We found him dead in the basement," Barren said. With his willowy fingers, he pointed at the pictures. "With a syringe deep in his thigh. There were other signs of struggle, but the autopsy report concluded that it was the content of the syringe that killed him. Guess he wasn't lying to you when he said he was going to—"

Castelo cleared his throat, and stopped the old man from finishing his sentence. But perhaps, even if he had said all he meant to say, it couldn't have made any difference for Mary. Her eyes stared into space. And she flinched, as though someone just gave her a blow in the stomach.

"Dead?" she said in a panic-stricken voice. "But I never— I didn't meant to— I was only trying to protect myself and—"

"We understand it was self-defense. I assure that you won't be persecuted," Castelo said. "And, if it makes it any easier for you, we suspect it was actually him that's responsible for the kidnapping and killing of four women across the state. Bloody Face, as the press like to call him."

Shivers ran through my body. "What?"

Barren fiddled with his matchbox. "We found some human remains all around that house, including the mask that gave him the household name of Bloody Face. The investigation is underway. My gut says there'll be more."

He didn't continue by providing us too much disturbing details. I felt grateful for that, at least. There was already a lot to take in, and my mind became all muddled. Mary seemed quite lost in thought, too, her fingers looking for the missing strand of her hair.

"This is all we know so far," Castelo said. "Do you have any questions? Do you need anything?"

My whole body had a small tremor. When I spoke, my voice shook, too. "No thank you. We'd like to go home."

I stood up from the chair, with my trembling knees. Mary didn't seem to take notice of this, so I gently pulled her up by the hand.

Castelo walked us out. The hallways felt longer than when we'd come in. Many times, he gave us reassuring words. They all bounced off the walls inside my head, and made my thoughts even more tangled. As we stepped out of the building, I saw a number of journalists—some familiar faces—lingering there, like vultures.

A thought flashed across my mind.

I turned around to look at Castelo. "If you are convinced that the dead man was the true maniac, what would become of the one falsely put under arrest? The one in the mental institution?" Despite my eager curiosity, I opted not to disclose my close association with Kit.

"He'll be released," he said. "Although, it will take time to get the high officials to admit they made a mistake, that they almost put an innocent man in the chair."

"I hope it won't be too late."

He nodded. "I've seen him once. He didn't strike me as the sadistic monster the press depicted."

The sincerity in his voice, and in his dark eyes, gave some lightness to the weight on my heart.

###

It only gave me temporary solace, however, as ephemeral as a touch of a cold hand on a fresh burn scar. At home, another problem awaited my return. The realization came as a gradual process, as the fogs in my mind cleared up. I searched the bedrooms, the bathroom, the kitchen. But every room and the driveway remained empty, as we'd left them.

The entire home stood in silence, without Wendy.

I took the phonebook out of the drawer, and called her hadn't heard from her. I called Louise's house. She said she hadn't seen Wendy for a week.—Although it was the first time I learned of their recent meeting, I didn't ask further questions.

I called the workplace of Barbara, then. I expected the same answer as Louise's, and yet, she gave me a different answer. An answer more brutal.

"No, the last time I saw her was a week ago, with Louise, but— Lana, does this have something to do with Mary Eunice? Is she still missing, too?"

"What? No, we found her. Did Wendy tell you about that? Why do you ask?"

"Well," she said, "She wanted this to be a secret from you, but . . . she called me a couple of days ago, crying like the day you were taken away. Two days ago, I'm certain. I was just enjoying my afternoon tea. She said that you two had the worst argument ever, and it was about that girl. She was blubbering so much I couldn't comprehend most of what she said."

The tear-stained face of Wendy flickered before my eyes. "It's— She has something to do in a way, but we talked about it," I said. Mary stood next to me, watching me talk. I felt a pang of conscience for talking about her without her knowledge.

Barb didn't sound so convinced. "Lana, it wasn't the first time she called me to talk about Mary Eunice. Not to just tell me about the disappearance of her. She talks about how unloved she felt, constantly crying. I love you both, and it doesn't feel good to take sides, but— Do you still love her?" Her sympathetic voice had a tone of heartbreak.

I struggled for words, for breath. "How could you ask me that? You've watched us since the beginning."

"Emotions change. Nobody gets to control their heart. I'm not blaming you for something you can't control."

"I love her, Barb. Okay? That's why I'm looking for her now."

"And do you suppose you could keep living like now, three of you under the same roof?"

I was going to say yes. But a loud sigh of vexation came from the other side.

"I have to go. My supervisor is starting to get irritated," she said. "I love you, Lana, but I meant what I said to you. I'm glad Mary Eunice is back. Let me know when Wendy returns."

I hung up with a heavier heart. Her words, her uncharacteristically criticizing opinions, weighed me down.

"What did she say?" Mary asked. She drew her brows together, with the never-changing air of misgiving.

I felt my eyes well up. "She hasn't seen her, either. It's plausible to think something really happened at Briarcliff, or on her way there."

I felt out of breath. The world was closing in on me, as the image of Wendy in a decrepit bed at that foul place flashed across my mind. With a frenzied hand, I opened the drawer of the telephone stand, and pulled out the Yellow Pages. The softest rustling of the pages shook me up even more. Soon, I found the number of Briarcliff Manor. I jotted it down on the memo pad, found on top of the thick telephone dictionary.

Mary never asked what I was doing. Still, she must've recognized the number.

"No, Lana," she said, in a frail tone. "You shouldn't. Please, don't call her."

"I need to. Jude has her." I picked up the receiver, but Mary pulled it down.

"Even if you are right, calling her won't do anything." Her breath had a small tremor. Her wavering gaze, then, travelled to the phone. "Maybe, the detectives could help us find her," she said. "They said to give them a call if we need their help. They look like good people. I trust them."

I let go of the receiver.

Perhaps, I should've told the detectives about this at the police station earlier. But the new information about the maniac had wiped away all of my thoughts, and it hadn't occurred to mention Wendy at that time. People might say, then, this was the proof of my love for Mary being greater than that for Wendy. I wouldn't have a way to refute their assumptions. But what could you do, if you just learned that your loved one had escaped a terrible, hellish pain and death by the skin of their teeth? The image of Mary's decapitated body kept flickering before my eyes. I did my utmost to ignore it, and to keep my emotions in check. I couldn't have had a moment to think about anything else. My brain wasn't built that way.

I rummaged in my coat pockets, and found a piece of paper with the police station's number on it. Castelo had a messy handwriting. I dialed the number, then. The _toot_ on the telephone line echoed in my ear. My worn-out senses found the sound and rhythm too harrasing.

The person answering the phone didn't sound like Castelo. I asked for him, and they put me on hold. Some shuffling and rustling sounds came from the other side. I stared at the phone for a moment. Next to it was the memo pad, with Wendy's neat scribble below my messy handwriting. It was something about her student. I ran my finger across the surface. The graphite blurred under the touch, painting my fingertip in silvery black. Tears rolled down my cheek without any forewarning. I looked at Mary. She cast her gaze down, as soon as our eyes met.

Then, someone picked the phone up.

"Miss Winters," Castelo said. "Is everything alright with you and Miss McKee?"

Words got stuck in my throat, as I wiped away tears. All of a sudden, at the gentle tone of his voice, I felt a flood of mortification inside me. They had rescued Mary from a serial killer a couple of days ago, and now my _roommate_ went missing. I almost felt afraid of his reaction, of how he, the only nice cop, would view me. It was a kind of shame I'd never experienced. If regular shame was like a sharp knife, this felt like a rusted paper knife, taking an agonizing amount of time to cut my skin. But I shook the feeling off, and informed him of the situation.

He listened, in the same compassion stance. "And, when exactly was the last time you saw her?"

"It was yesterday afternoon, I think," I said. "Yes, yesterday afternoon."

"So it's only been about twenty-four hours."

I felt my heart sink, as I understood everything at once. "Yes," I said.

"Well, Miss Winters, I do understand your concern, but we cannot do anything until the 48-hour period is over. If this was a missing child case, we could respond immediately. But, your roommate is a legal adult—"

"But I know she's in danger. This is not just a feeling."

"I understand. But it's common for a family member to quickly assume—"

"This is not a goddamn assumption!" I said, through my clenched teeth. The heartbreak and the shattered hope turned into anger, and became tears. "Why can't you people believe what I say? I called you, because I had faith that you'd be different from other crappy officers, because I thought you'd get it."

"Miss Winters—"

"I know where she went. I would go there by myself if I could. But I can't. You don't know what they do to you at Briarcliff. Please, I'm begging you. I can't wait another day." My knees gave in. I sank down to the floor, my forehead rested on the telephone stand.

My own sobs resounded in the hollow of the receiver, and it sounded as though someone else was crying on the other side of the phone.

"Did you say Briarcliff?" Castelo said. His voice sounded different, a little gravier.

Hope crept back to me. "Yes, Briarcliff Manor. The mental asylum where the wrong Bloody Face is incarcerated."

"I know. And, your roommate went there by herself?"

I said yes.

He never asked why, as I'd feared. Instead of a question, he sighed, and fell quiet. The silence had a thickness in it, warning me not to disturb it. I waited, like a prisoner in the court right before the sentencing.

"Okay," he said at last. "I'll talk to my boss, but we still can't go there immediately. That place is a property of the Church. We have to have a warrant authorized."

The light of hope grew bright, and dimmed back down in a matter of a second.

"But we don't have that kind of time," I said.

"I want to help, believe me. But issuing a search warrant is a time-consuming procedure to begin with, and they'll be reluctant to mess with a place like Briarcliff unless they feel absolutely certain about it." He took a slow, deep breath. "But we will search that place. You can count on me."

But it was the people with power that I didn't trust. I didn't doubt Castelo any more. I believed he truly wanted to do something for us. Still, his sense of justice meant nothing to the authority of the rotten institution. He was a mere deer before a band of coyote. And I was an ant.

"Miss Winters, are you still there?"

"Yes."

"I need you to do something for me," he said. "We will need as much information about Miss Peyser as possible. Her physical characteristics, what kind of clothes she was wearing, things like that. And if you have recent pictures of her, that'd be a great help."

"Pictures. Okay."

"Bring them to the police station. I'll talk to you there."

There was no other choices. I caved in and hung up. My grip remained tight around the receiver still, as I stared down at it. I couldn't let go. I felt like it'd be the final stage of my surrender, to release the phone. A sob tore from my throat. Then, all the bubbles of emotion burst out of me.

"We'll never make it in time," I said to nobody in particular, wailing.

My heart ached. I began to feel giddy, as though spinning out of consciousness. But then, Mary came closer to me. I'd almost forgotten her presence there, and flinched on the inside. She looked at me, with great pain in her eyes. Her eyes remained tearless, however. I was the only one with wet cheeks. She raised her hand to reach for mine, but the next moment, she seemed to have a second thought. The gesture, though unfulfilled, eased the dizziness at least.


	35. Chapter 35

"We need pictures of Wendy," I said to Mary. "We need to see Castelo at the station."

I let go of the telephone, and shuffled my way to the living room. It felt like floating just an inch above the floor. Desperation and fear were the only things that kept my knees strong enough.

Mary followed me in. "They could help, then?"

I took one photo album off the bookshelf. It stirred up dust. "Not soon enough," I said. "They need to wait until the goddamn search warrant is authorized." I trotted to the entrance door, then.

"How long does it take?"

"I don't have a clue." I grabbed a coat off a coat rack, threw it on, and grabbed another for Mary. However, my aggravation only worsened, as I saw the emptiness of the key bowl on the entrance table. "Oh, fuck! We gotta call a fucking cab again." My head reeled, on the brink of an eruption. I ran back to the telephone.

But then, there came a sound of a car from the outside. It pulled over in front of the house.

Mary's apprehensive eyes locked with mine. My heart began to beat in a mingled feeling of hope and anxiety. It could be anybody behind that door. Jude, a mailman, Wendy. The mere engine sound revealed nothing. I went into the living room, and peeked out the window. The door of the car closed with a clunk. Through the gap in the curtains, I caught a glimpse of a person with short brunette hair, as the person began to walk towards the door of the house.

I trotted to the entrance. "Mary, let's go."

"Who is it? Is it Miss Wendy?" she said, as she followed with wary steps.

I stepped out onto the front porch. "Louise!" I said, running straight to her.

The momentarily stiffened posture of Louise betrayed alarm. Soon, though, her lips curled into a lopsided smile. "Hey, Lana. I was in the neighborhood, and thought I'd drop by. What's going on? Have you found Wendy?"

I shook my head. "We need to go to the police station now. Can you give us a ride?"

Louise glanced at Mary behind me, and looked back at me. She gave a nod, then. We all hopped in her car, me in the passenger's seat, and Mary in the backseat. The car took the ever familiar route.

I rested the photo album on my lap. I riffled through the pages, looking for a suitable picture to give to the police. We didn't have many pictures, and only a small portion of what we had were _appropriate_. Most of them had two of us, holding hands or in each other's embraces. A picture of us in the driveway, when we bought the house three years ago. A picture of us at a picnic. Pictures of us on a roadtrip. We were innocent then. These two people in the photographs radiated true joy, so in love, like a regular couple. We couldn't let other people see it.

Louise let out a faint chuckle. "I love that picture," she said, as she waved her hand to the album. "The one in the bottom left corner. It's when we all went to Florida, isn't it?"

I bought the album closer to my face. It was a picture of Wendy and me, lying under a beach umbrella on the beach. Wendy wore a polka-dot swimsuit, while I had a thin jacket on, covering my shoulders. My arms were around her waist, as I hugged her from behind. The curve of my lips almost touched her ear. Both of us had the brightest smiles, as though we had all the earthly happiness to ourselves. The brightness of the past cast a shadow on the present.

"Yeah, Florida," I said. "Last summer."

"Right after I took that picture, I went into the water and got stung by a jellyfish," Louise said. "I clearly remember that. Do you?"

I said no.

"I'm not surprised. You guys were just so immersed in the world of you two."

My heart skipped a beat. For a moment, I saw Wendy's face, the stream of tears, instead of Louise. I looked down at the photographs, as the flashing image weighed me down.

"We took a lot more pictures on that trip. It took me almost a whole day to develop the negatives." Louise's voice had a hint of nostalgia and pride. "My dad has a dark room in our house," she then said to Mary in the rearview mirror. "I'm actually better at it than him. If you have any pictures you want—"

"Louise, please pay attention to the road while driving," I said.

Her head snapped back, and she mumbled an apology. This did not discourage her in the slightest, however. She had the limitless vigor of a child. She extended her arm over the wheel, grabbing the newspaper on the dashboard.

"Have you read the evening paper yet?" she said. Her animated eyes remained on the road, as she handed the paper to me.

"I haven't read anything in the last few days."

"They caught Bloody Face. The real one. He was apparently at large the whole time. He's dead now, but they've caught him. The news is all over the place, everybody's talking about it. Turns out he's a doctor. Can you imagine? I can't see my docs the same way any more. I mean, I now have a legitimate reason to postpone my next dental check-up."

I looked at Mary in the rearview mirror. She hung her head, shrinking her body, like the night before in the hospital. Her fingers fiddled with her hair. I should've sat in the backseat with her.

Louise kept talking, oblivious. "You must miss your job. You've been following that story since the beginning, yeah? Did you know his mask was actually made of human fle—"

"Cut it out, Louise," I said.

"What? Why?"

"Just, cut it out. Put the paper away."

Although with great confusion in her eyes, Louise obeyed and put the paper back on the dashboard. The stillness of the air grew stifling. Louise's imploring gaze caressed my skin every other second. I stared ahead. But everytime the car drove over a bump, the newspaper on the dashboard gave a rustling sound. Encouraging me. It made me feel like a starved dog, in front of a pile of raw meat. I glared at the paper from my seat. With it being folded, I could only see the bold letters of _Bloody Face_ in Franklin Gothic. I stared at the words, and tried to make out what the rest said. A fruitless attempt. My hunger only exacerbated. I stole a glance at Mary in the mirror, and at last, I caved in. I reached for the paper.

 _Dr. Bloody Face_ , the headline said, with _End of True Maniac and His Bloodlust Castle_ for the deck. I shifted in my seat, hiding the article from the backseat. Below the headline were a picture of the house and a picture of Thredson. Here, for the first time, I had an opportunity to study his features. He was by no mean an unattractive man, conventionally speaking. In fact, the slight curve of his lips and his strong eyebrows might even appear alluring to some. But under the loose arches of his eyebrows, his dark eyes seemed to glint with a sadistic satisfaction. I felt sick with repugnance. It felt as if he knew, the moment the photograph was taken, that the whole country would know about him, and regard him with awe-stricken terror. It was that kind of smile.

The article occupied the entire front page. It talked a great deal about what I hadn't previously known. Especially about Thredson. His childhood was a wretched one, having no parent and growing up in an orphanage. He was a loner, always the odd one out. He'd earned his medical license at a relatively young age, and had worked as a state-appointed psychiatrist for some huge criminal cases before. Although he had a limited social life, everyone who knew him respected him as an honorable member of society. Nobody knew, or even suspected, about his personal life. The police found human bones from multiple bodies in the house, as well as furniture made of human skin. There was a huge collection of cutlery—from scalpels to skinning knives to handsaws—in the basement. And in an commercial-sized cool box there, he had the body of a black woman, frozen and untouched. The police had yet to identify the victim. His last victim, Mary Eunice, also remained nameless in the article. This gave me some relief, at least. She wouldn't have been able to handle the intrusive attention from the press. We owed this one to the detectives. The article had only a brief mention of Kit, and focused more on the competence of the Massachusetts police. It concluded with a promise for follow-ups.

I devoured every word of the article. I forgot everything else while I read it. And before all the information sank in, the car stopped, in the parking lot of the police station. With the paper in my hands, I got out of the car.

"Hey, how're you two going home?" Louise asked.

"We'll get a cab," I said, as I helped Mary out.

Louise pursed her lips for a moment, and got out of the car herself. She handed out the key to me. "Take it," she said. "You can't call a cab and wait for it everytime something happens."

"How are _you_ going home?"

"I can call my dad and ask him to pick me up. Don't you worry about me." She gave us her mischievous lopsided smile. "It's not a gift, though. I'm just letting you borrow it until Wendy comes back with the Toyota baby."

I took the key from her, as Mary thanked her for both of us.

Then, we walked to the entrance. Right before the door, Mary almost ran into Castelo. He apologized quickly, as he was buttoning up his coat.

"Miss Winters." He flashed a troubled smile, then. "I'm very sorry, but I need to go out. Barren is inside. I told him about your case. He'll listen to you," he said, while continuing to walk away. The urgency in his speech and action gave me an inexplicable rush of anxiety.

"Is everything alright?" I said.

He fixed his scarf around his neck. "Yes, everything's fine. Well, the thing is, I can't get any prosecutor to consult about this—" He made a vague gesture with his hand. "—whole procedure. They are too busy, or pretending to be too busy, to even spare a minute. So, I'm going to see them in person. And then I need to find a judge, too. Excuse me, ladies. I'll make it as quick as possible."

Then, he ran to one of the cars parked in the corner of the parking lot. Behind those cars, on the pavement, I saw Louise at a payphone. Her eyes met mine, and she waved a cheerful hand at us. Although I returned the gesture, my mind buzzed with apprehensive thoughts. I only understood half of Castelo's words.

We entered the building, then, for the second time that day. At this point, everything had become too familiar to me. The door would creak as it closed. The reception boy would have his nose buried in a magazine. The clicking of my heels would echo in the hall. The sound would prompt him to raise his head, and at the sight of me, he would bare his teeth. All of it, disturbingly familiar. His nostrils seemed to flare with more frenzy now. But it no longer entertained me in the slightest.

To make the matter even more frustrating, Castelo's gloomy partner had left his desk, too.

"He must be smoking in the nap room," the reception boy said. "He'll come back soon. Wait at his desk." He just waved a hand in the direction of the spacious room across the hall. He never bothered to specify which desk belonged to Barren.

We eventually located it with the help of other more reliable officers. His desk had nothing but papers on it, organized in a rather fastidious manner. No pictures of his family or a pet. Nothing to hint at his personal life. The little trash can under the desk contained crumpled cigarette packs, full to the brim. The bleakness of it represented the man himself quite fairly.

There, we waited about five minutes, as meek as two lost lambs on a stormy night. I still had the newspaper in my hands. Mary seemed lost in thought, as she hung her head in her seat. I skimmed through the article again, and looked at the rest of the paper, to see if there was any car accident report. There was one, on the outskirts of the town. But the victim was an old man.

"I feel bad for Miss Louise," Mary said, as she looked up.

I hid the paper away. "No need to. Her family is one of the most influential landowners in the state. It's not the only car they own."

"Oh."

"Actually," I said, "Wendy and I bought the house from them, for a way cheaper price than its market price." I felt a small smile tug at the corner of my mouth.

But then, I looked around the cigarette-smoke-filled room, and the anguish of this whole situation blemished the memory of our happy day at once. I closed my eyes. The warmth of Wendy's kiss and embrace lingered on my skin, still vivid. But when I opened my eyes, I only saw a grey floor. We shared no more words, as I continued to stare down at the floor.

A pair of decrepit leather shoes appeared, then. I looked up, and found Barren with his coffee mug in his hand, a cigarette between his thin lips. He put down the mug on the desk, as he took a seat.

"Castelo has something to take care of and cannot be here right now," he said, in his detached tone.

"Yes," I said, "we saw him at the entrance."

His googly eyes travelled to Mary next to me, and came back to me a moment later. "You brought her with you? I heard this was an unrelated case."

Mary hid her face behind her bangs, biting her lip.

I felt defiant at this. "I won't leave her alone. She doesn't have anybody else."

From the previous two meetings, as short as they were, I assumed I'd grasped the general character of Barren. Sullen, apathetic, and minced no words. I'd expected him to criticize my judgement, to sneer at our close relationship. And I prepared myself to bite back.

Still, he only puffed his cigarette. "Good call," he said, while looking at a file. "So, your roommate is missing, you say?"

This positive indifference threw me off my balance a little. But I collected myself quickly. I flipped through the photo album, and gave him a picture of Wendy sitting in a diner.

Barren held it a bit far from his face, narrowing his eyes. He cocked his brow. "I know her," he said. "She teaches at Charlemont Elementary, doesn't she? My niece had her in the third grade last year. She is her favorite teacher, I remember." His expression seemed softer more or less.

I found myself at a loss for a reply. Of all people in this very police station, Barren was the last person I'd expected to have small talk with. Thankfully, he didn't seem to take notice of my discomfort. He took out a pen, and began to ask me about the physical characteristics of Wendy. The same aloof air returned to him. The questions were all systematic and unequivocal.

And I answered, with the same level of detachment. It helped me in a way. I didn't have to waste our time by giving into my sentimentality. I didn't have to face the sense of helplessness, my failures.

After all those necessary questions, he again scanned the note in the file. "Briarcliff?" he said, knitting his brows.

My heart shrank at the name of the abominable place.

His gaze, when it found mine, seemed to have something between confusion and criticism. "So, you know where she is and think she's in danger, but can't go there?"

"It's tantamount to showing up at White House uninvited," I said. "They'd shut the gate at first sight of me. They have no obligation to let me in or answer any of my questions."

"It's a different issue if you're looking for a missing person."

"No." I shook my head. "They won't let me." Heat grew between my eyes. I regretted coming here. Although his partner might actually care about his duty, I thought, Barren lacked basic sympathy.

He put the file down. "Is there something that you haven't told us?" he said.

I faltered.

And he didn't miss it. He whirled his chair around, fully facing me. "You are aware we expect a full disclosure of information, miss. You hold anything back, someone might get hurt. Now, none of us wants that."

I swallowed once, and prepared for the worst. I struggled with conflicting emotions. If I had to disclose the reason behind Wendy's departure, then I had to tell him everything. _Everything_. Omission of truth would only invite distrust. To save Wendy, I couldn't have a groove in our trust relationship. At the same time, though, things were much more complicated. When Barren heard about the journey of us, he'd connect the dots and learn who we were. The homosexuals claiming to be victims of abuse at the mental institute. Then, he would tell Castelo, and we would have nobody to help us.

But at last, I took my chance, and told him everything. About my captivity, our escape, Mary's disappearance, and Wendy's scheme to bring her back. My heart sank deeper and deeper at each word I uttered.

"I was reading the newspaper, thinking maybe something happened outside that place." I fiddled with the paper. "But there's no report of any accident involving someone like her. She has to be held against her will, like I was."

Not once did I look up at Barren, for fear of finding hate on his face. I felt ashamed enough, all of my pride and defiance gone. A mere glimpse of hate and disgust could have broken me. What made it even more insufferable was his total silence and stillness. The silence continued, even after I finished speaking. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the cigarette between his willowy fingers become shorter by the second. It eventually went out by itself. The ash lay on his knee, and remained there for the rest of the interview.


	36. Chapter 36

At last, Barren drew out a breath, and leaned back in his seat. "So . . ." Another sigh. "Let me get this straight. She went to the asylum, thinking Miss McKee would be there. But she was found somewhere else, and now Miss Peyser herself is missing."

There was genuine sincerity, and perhaps an undertone of distress, in his voice. Despite my fearful expectations, I detected no sign of hate. I gave him an obedient nod, as this turn of the event pushed me into bewilderment again.

"Okay," he said. He brought his mug to his lips. His eyes narrowed, staring into space. But, something about his expression changed, then, around those eyes. He now looked at Mary, who sat rather behind me, slightly out of his line of vision. "Hey," he said to her. His voice had no edges, even though the gloomy creases remained deep between his brows.

Mary looked up. The timidity in her eyes grew more apparent, as she became aware of the attention.

The posture of Barren seemed to soften. "Don't blame yourself," he said. "It's not your fault. No one's fault."

His remark only sent another wave of confusion to me. It felt so out of the blue to me. I didn't see why on earth Mary should be held accountable in any way.

But then, her face and neck grew red at once. Her face became contorted, lip quivering, brows drawn together, as tears welled up in her eyes. The first teardrop plopped down her cheek, in silence. The rest followed down, like great waterfalls that knew no end. Her fists shook in her lap. The sight continued to perplex me still.

But when a suppressed sob tore from her throat, I recognized the look of guilt at last. I understood, then, the root of her more-than-usual reservation. She'd hesitated to hold my hand earlier in the house. It had never happened before. With other things swarming my mind, I had attributed all of it to the Thredson incident. Not a part of me had doubted otherwise.

I reached out for her. At first, her hands did not welcome me in, balled into firm fists. Still, they loosened up eventually. She took hold of my fingers, the way a baby does. She held me as though I was her anchor. The skin around her eyes glistened with the lingering tears. After several moments, her eyes found mine.

I squeezed her hand. "Nobody could've seen it coming. I never think this is your fault, and neither does Wendy. Don't ever blame yourself."

She screwed her eyes shut, and one more sob escaped her. The high-pitched sound attracted attention from the people around us, curious and intrusive. Some even dared to roll their eyes on her.

I looked back at Barren, with my hand in Mary's. I found him lighting a cigarette with a nonchalant air. It gave me mixed emotions. This balding guy, a personification of indifference, had seen what I couldn't. Perhaps, he was a misunderstood human, too, like us. Although it crossed my mind to give him words of gratitude, something told me he'd deem it useless, or even incomprehensible. I decided to bite my tongue for now. It would be a premature thing to do anyway. I didn't want to jinx it.

Barren took a long drag on his cigarette, his forehead uncreasing for a split second. "That's all for now. Go home," he said.

But the fog of apprehension lingered in my chest. "Can I ask you something?" I said.

"Shoot."

"We saw Detective Castelo in the parking lot. He said something about getting a prosecutor and a judge."

"That's right."

"What does that mean, though? He seemed to be in a great hurry. I couldn't ask for an explanation. It is about this case, right?"

Barren seemed confused at first. His intense gaze bored a hole in my skin. Then, he shifted in his seat, smoothing back his thin hair. "Right, it is. Well, it's part of the procedure. We basically list all the reasons why the warrant is necessary. And we get the paper proofread by a prosecutor, and after that, bring that to a judge, who signs it and gives us a go sign."

"But, Detective Castelo said they are too busy."

Barren gave a nod. "He's right. It's not a process as easy as it sounds. Most of the time, we have to run around and make a bunch of phone calls because those people are almost never available. It's no fun to read those documents, they say."

I felt a great deal of uneasiness about this. "How long does it usually take, then?"

"To have a warrant authorized? Usually two to three hours. Sometimes a day. Sometimes a month."

"A month?" I almost jumped up out of my chair.

"Take it easy," he said. "Castelo is doing everything he can to help you. He might be young, but that boy is one of the finest cops you'll ever meet in your life." He stood up, then, and stuck his hand in a pocket of his baggy suit pants. "Now, go home. We will give you a call when we finished searching the place."

"But—"

"Let us take care of Miss Peyser and that mental asylum. Meanwhile, you gotta look after her." With his mug, he gestured to Mary. "What she needs right now is sleep and a sense of security. We don't provide either of the two here. Go home. I need a quick nap."

Without any interest in my response whatsoever, he walked away. A good move on his part, because I would've protested more. I understood his point. And under any other circumstances, I would've listened to my objectivity, and listened to him. But now, this only filled me with absolute bitterness, as I stood up.

Mary did the same. She avoided eye contact, her guilt still evident and profound.

I yielded at last. "Let's go. I'll buy you something to eat on the way home."

I walked out of the station, with my tail between my legs. The good weather, the mild temperature of the afternoon, only weighed down my spirit even more. I barely felt the warmth of Mary's hand in mine.

A little away from us, a police car came pulling into the parking lot. A uniformed officer got out of it, and walked to the entrance door. Sunlight bounced off the black steel of a gun in his holster.

A gun. I wished I had one of them.

###

I bought Mary some noodles at the Chinese restaurant. But the to-go box remained on the kitchen island, untouched, soaking up the coldness of the island surface. We both sat there, in this silence. It felt stifling, almost like drowning. With each breath, the invisible water of misery invaded my lungs, and killed me at the slowest rate possible. I looked down, my head buried in my hands. A single tear fell from my eye, and made a small puddle that twinkled in an incoming beam of sunlight.

What a torturous thing it is, to have to wait, when your loved one is in the hand of your old torturer. From the other side of the high wall, the laughter of your torturer reaches your ears. But the place is unreachable and untouchable. Around your wrists and ankles are invisible shackles.

"I should never have gone into the church," Mary said. "I should've just let you drive home. Then Miss Wendy wouldn't have had to go searching for me."

I wiped my tears away. "Not your fault. If anyone's responsible, it's the maniac. Not you."

"All I wanted was God's forgiveness. If I'd known—"

"That's the point," I said, and connected our hands. "You are not psychic. None of us is."

"I just needed courage, so I could confess my sins to you, all the things I've done for Dr. Arden."

"What? What things?"

She hung her head down even lower, and took one shaky breath. "The creatures in the woods. You asked me about them. They are— They are Dr. Arden's experiments."

I tried to look into her face. "What are those things? What is he experimenting with?"

"I don't know." She gave a feeble shake of her head. "He once talked about the scientific revolution of the century, but his words only confused me. I never questioned anything. I was only the feeder, his assistant. Every morning and evening, I brought them buckets of raw meat. I don't know where Dr. Arden got all the meat."

"Raw meat," I said to myself. "Of course. It wanted to eat us alive that night. I knew it."

That feeling of mortal fear was instinctual. Now, with the actual testimony of Mary, the terror came back to me, ten-fold. It ran through my limbs. Those dilated eyes of the zombie-like creature seemed to gleam, in the corner of the very living room.

As her words sank in, however, another strip of clarity flashed across my mind.

"Wait, them?" I said. "There's more than one?"

All the morbid anxiety about Wendy vanished in an instant, replaced by the image of the creature. The details of it that haunted during my delirium in solitary. The blistered skin, the reeking air about it, and the tattered shirt. The blue hospital gown.

I felt the temperature of my blood drop. "They are humans." I looked at Mary. "Arden is conducting a human experiment."

Her jaw tightened.

"Are they the inmates that went missing? The Mexican lady?" My whole body began to have a miniscule tremor.

"I don't know," she said again, in a pitiful tone. "All I know is that sometimes, when a patient got sick, Dr. Arden asked them to be brought into his lab."

"An inmate who didn't have family to look for them."

"They rarely came back. Most of them didn't survive. Some were transported to a bigger medical facility."

"Were they?"

A whimper came out, as she shuddered. "One day, one of the creatures came too close to me. I noticed it had the same beard as one particular patient that had died earlier that month. And the same height, the same hair color . . ." She wrapped her arms around her trembling frame. "I couldn't sleep that night. But I only scolded myself for my own lack of faith in Dr. Arden."

"You chose willful blindness," I said.

"It was for the greater good." Her hands rose, pressing the palms to her eyes. "Who am I to doubt his genius?"

Her words gave an aching to the core of my heart. "You still believe in him," I said.

She nodded, after drawing in breaths. "But I'm still a sinner, and Miss Wendy is now in danger because of me." Her expression had a darker color, calmer in despair. She looked at me from behind the twinkling eyelashes. "Are you going to tell the detectives about this?"

I stared at her, at the frightened little girl inside her eyes. "No," I said. "Not for now. He needs to be locked up, but I'm never letting go of you."

I took my cigarette case, and lit one. I breathed the smoke in, as deeply as my lungs allowed. They gave a muffled creaking sound inside my chest. My mind raced. There is something about sorrow and despair that makes one's head clear as day. Something that pierces through thick, dark clouds. I turned to look at Mary. She stayed in her seat, like a statue of penitence and lamentation.

"I saw him," I said, "while we were searching for you. He was looking for you, too."

She raised her head. "Who?"

"Arden. We argued, because I thought he had you."

A faint smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. "I wish it was so." Her voice faded out, together with the smile. She drew her brows together. "I think he found me, while I was passed out in the hospital."

"Arden? He came to you?"

"I didn't see him. Only felt his presence. It might have been a dream." She seemed to stare into nothingness. Her hand rose from her lap, and fidgeted with the severed part of her hair.

I hated the sight of it. I despised it, as though it was the maniac himself. Everytime her dainty fingers sought the visible mark of her trauma, it gouged into my heart.

I stubbed my cigarette out . "I'll be back," I said to her, and trotted to my bedroom. There, I found a navy polka dot headscarf in the dresser. With it, I went back to her. "Maybe, if you put your hair up, it wouldn't bother you that much."

Mary blinked at the scarf. Her fingers let go of the hair quickly, and she apologized. "I didn't realize I was doing that."

"Do you want to wear this? I can do it for you."

She gave a nod, without looking up.

I folded the scarf longways, then stood behind her. I wrapped it around her head, just above her hairline. I tucked the shorter strand of her hair under it, and tied it behind her neck at the nape. It was the only way I knew how to do it.

The single headscarf transformed her into someone else. No vestiges of the meek nun remained on the outside. The navy color seemed to accentuate the color of her eyes, giving them more depth. In a modern dress and the scarf, she looked no different from those _regular_ girls. The sight awoken mingled sensations of awe, aversion, and loneliness in me.

Mary's hand rose, and with timidness, stroked the scarf. Her tentative eyes found mine, then. She observed my face, boring a hole in my skin.

"What is wrong?" she said in a whisper.

My eyes brimmed with tears. I gave her a faint shake of my head, as I sank into my chair. Silence resurfaced and surrounded us. We sat in it for some minutes. Despite my constant blurry vision, my other senses remained keen, and I felt Mary's gaze on me. I could hear her asking herself what she had done now, blaming herself for her powerlessness.

"The scarf, it's Wendy's," I said, and crawled back into the silence.

When I returned my gaze to her, I found the scarf in her hands. Her hair looked more disheveled. Her eyes seemed to display no emotions, as she fixed them on the newspaper on the edge of the kitchen island. The picture of Thredson was looking at the ceiling. I moved the paper further from her, out of her sight.


	37. Chapter 37

The sun cast shadows on the walls as it began to set.

I grew frantic. I had no patience left in me to just sit around. According to Mary, as she told me later on, I talked to myself like a real lunatic, going back and forth between the kitchen and the telephone. Although I don't remember that part myself, I remember the boiling frustrations deep in my gut, as I complained about the capability of the detectives.

Mary tried, to the best of her ability, to calm me down. "They are doing their best," she said. "And, Miss Wendy has only been there for a day."

"One day too long."

"I know. But, you were there for two months and survived. Sister Jude can't do much in one day, can she?" It sounded more like self-persuasion than anything else.

"On the second day they fried my brain."

"But—" She pressed her lips together, as she struggled to come up with something.

"Forget it." _You are only fooling yourself,_ I almost said.

Then, a faint gasp left her. She twisted her body at the waist in her seat, to look at me with a hopeful light in her eyes. "When Sister Jude caught you, didn't she come to Miss Wendy, to this house, for the paperwork?"

I said yes, though I couldn't see her point.

"If Miss Wendy is really at Briarcliff as a patient," she said. "Sister Jude has to come to you, doesn't she? And then— And then, you could . . . do something." The gleam of optimism died out, as her voice faded out. She dropped her shoulders.

"Something? Like what, talk her out of it?" I began to walk to and fro again, taking the deepest drags on a cigarette. I felt it chipping away at my patience at an alarming rate. "Jude doesn't have to come to me or anyone, because I'm fucking dead and Wendy doesn't have anyone else."

In the heat and frenzy of the moment, I marched to the telephone. I looked at the memo pad in the dim hallway. My hands shook both in nervousness and rage. I dialed the number, for real this time. I couldn't have explained myself if I'd tried. I felt so desperate, just to get out of this purgatory of lethargic waiting, to actually make a difference with my hands, with some action.

Mary came following me. "Lana, this is too dangerous."

Her begging had no effect on me this time. I could hear her voice, but it sounded like a voice coming from a radio. The _toot_ of the phone resonated in my ear. My impulse only grew stronger, the thumping or my heart louder. The hypnotic sound and the craze in me worked in tandem, and I developed tunnel vision. Everything now sounded as though I was under water.

"What can she possibly do over the phone?" I heard myself say above the water surface. "If she could put a curse on me, she would've done it a long time ago."

Then, at last, the witch picked up the phone.

"Briarcliff Manor."

The low-pitched, unamused voice caressed the wall of my eardrum. The simple utterance discharged jolts of static electricity through my veins. My vision, for a split second, became absolutely black, like in the movie. Then, absolute clarity.

"Jude," I said.

A short silence followed. And, there came a snicker. "Miss Winters, I'm quite surprised you possessed the courtesy to give me a call. I was wondering just now how you are doing. Thanks for the greeting through the police by the way. I hope they delivered my message to you correctly."

"Where is Wendy?"

"Who now?"

It turned my stomach. "Wendy Peyser. You know who she is."

"Ah, yes, your _roommate_ ," she said, and let out a laugh. "And, would you care to explain why you assume I know about her whereabouts?"

"You can keep up your oblivious pretense as much as you please. But if you ever lay a finger on her, I swear to God I will bury Briarcliff underground with you and Monsignor in it."

"Swear to God? That is rich coming from you."

"I'm writing stories about my experience there, and guess what, you're in them. I already have many ideas for the titles. Just wait until I finish them. You'll be dead famous."

Jude snickered again. "I look forward to it," she said. "Just out of curiosity, though, which do you think would the public believe, a devout Catholic elderly or a sapphic reporter who writes cooking columns?"

"People are not stupid. Truth will always prevail."

"Truth lies where God is, Miss Winters. As far as the general public is concerned, we are the truth."

I wanted to spit in her face. My lips parted, with expletives on the tip of my tongue. But then, the anxious face of Mary caught my attention.

I brought my mouth closer to the receiver. "You seem to forget something very important. I have Mary on my side. An insider."

"Mary Eunice?" she said. "Why do you think she's any different from you? That girl is a patient of ours, whose ungodly delusions led her to further sins. But I have forgiven her, in spite of her ungratefulness after all these years. Tell her, when she's no longer useful to you, that she can come back."

I lost my ability to speak. How could someone be so cruel, without effort or qualms? Wasn't Mary like a child to her? Those words ripped my heart out, and filled the hole with venomous loathing. I hung up the phone, slamming the receiver down. My chest burned, as I breathed through clenched teeth. At least, I told myself, Mary didn't have to hear her.

Then, like an epiphany, I saw the image of the officer, in the parking lot with his gun, before my eyes. I had never wished so strongly that I had a gun.

"Put on a jacket. We are going," I said to Mary.

I marched into the kitchen. I grabbed one kitchen towel out of a drawer and a knife out of another. I wrapped the towel around it, and went to the entrance door.

Mary still stood by the phone. "Where are we going? What did Sister Jude say?"

Instead of answering her questions, I grabbed the car key at the door. "Come on, get in the car."

The wavering clicking of her heels echoed in the hallway. I felt so wound up, it didn't occur to me to lock the door. Getting behind the wheel, I threw the wrapped knife to the backseat without much care. And as soon as Mary got in the car, I hit the pedal. The tires made a piercing squeak, rubbing against the concrete.

"Lana, are we going to Briarcliff? But the detectives told us to wait," Mary said in the passenger's seat. She sounded like she was on the verge of tears.

"It's cancelled. We can't wait any longer." My hands tightened on the wheel.

"What did Sister Jude say to you?"

"I can't let Wendy go through that hell. I promised. I promised to give both of you what you deserve, to make you happy."

She fell quiet.

The roar of the engine grew louder. Without a doubt, the car speed surpassed the legal limit at this point. The buildings and occasional passersby flew by outside the windows. I avoided driving through downtown, and chose more empty streets with few intersections and traffic lights. I ignored almost all of the red lights. I only hit the brake, when a small child and his mother had to cross the road. The red light stared back at me. I bounced my knees. The setting sun painted the horizon ahead of us in a luscious white, as the orange clouds moved in high wind above it.

"Lana," Mary said. A sigh fell from her lips. "I've been thinking. About him."

"That monster doesn't deserve your time."

"But, he looked rather familiar to me. His name, too. I've been trying to remember why that is."

The family finally reached the other side of the road, in safety. Although the light had yet to turn green, I drove forward. And although this topic gave me a sick feeling, I had to listen, for the sake of Mary.

"He sometimes worked as a state-appointed psychiatrist," I said. "Maybe he's been to Briarcliff before."

"I thought about that, but no. When— When I was in that chamber, he asked many times if I recognized him. Almost like obsessed with it. But I couldn't and that made him furious." She clenched her fists in her lap. "I think— We knew each other in our childhood."

"You mean you remember him now?"

"In the orphanage," she said. "I spent a short period of time in an orphanage, after my mother passed. There was a boy, a few years older than me. Other kids called him Little Oliver. We only spoke to each other a couple of times."

"The paper said he grew up in the system," I said. "But, it's been more than a decade since then."

"It's the only possibility I could think of."

It seemed like an unrealistic and terrifying idea to me at first. A man who she wasn't even close to, finding her in the town after ten years, and capturing her only to hurt her. But then, I remembered what men would do for their thirst, what they were allowed to do for their desire. The idea stopped sounding so unimaginable now. We could make limitless speculations about Thredson, but the truth would forever remain in his grave.

We drove by the police station, and soon reached the outskirts of the town. A vast expanse of bleak land stretched away. No human was walking. We could see no other cars. There was only a lone horse, grazing on the grass in the backyard of a house. In the open field, the glare of sunlight came straight through the windshield, and dazzled me.

Next to me, I felt Mary move in her seat.

"Is that—" she said. "Is that a knife?"

I gave a quick glance over my shoulder. The knife now lay bare in the backseat, the blade reflecting the orange sun. The towel must have unrolled itself, when I'd thrown it earlier.

Mary looked at me, with vivid terror in her eyes. "Why is there a knife in the car?"

"I'm not going to hurt anybody," I said. "I just need it to get Wendy back."

"You will get arrested."

"Then, so be it. Me in jail is much better than her at Briarcliff."

With my numbing foot, I floored the gas pedal. The engine vroomed. Dead branches and small pieces of concrete made rigid bubbly sounds, fractured under the tires. I pressed down on the pedal even more. The speedometer needle swung to the right, for a second, but the next moment, the car began to lose speed.

"What the—" I pressed on the pedal, many times. It only produced empty sounds.

The fuel gauge now stayed still, pointing at 'E'. The needle of the speedometer pointed at zero. And at last, the scenery around us came to a halt.

"Fuck, fuck!" I hit the pedal, moved the shift stick with fierce force. But the car remained lifeless in the middle of the bleak field. "Fucking Louise!" I stepped out of the car. "Who fucking lets someone borrow a car that's almost out of gas?!" Although I felt a strong urge to get violent with the car, I held it in. I looked to the road ahead of us, and looked back to the road that we had drove on. The house with the horse was still close.

"We can borrow a telephone there," Mary said, as she stood on the other side of the car. "I— I can go. I can run. You can wait here with the car."

"No, I'm not letting you go by yourself." I pulled the car key out.

We began to walk, then, under the darkening sky. The winter air stroked the bare skin of my neck, and I stuck my hands in the coat pockets. My fingers touched the silky fabric of a scarf. I pulled it out, and gave it to Mary. But her eyes caught something else ahead of us.

There was a car, coming towards us.

"To the sidewalk," I said to her.

And while she obeyed, I trotted straight towards the approaching car, waving at them. The car slowed down at the sight of me. With enough distance in-between, it stopped before me. Behind the wheel sat a vexed person, of course. What I hadn't expected, though, was the wrinkled face of Barren there. Mary came running to me.

The door of the passenger seat opened. Castelo stepped out. "Miss Winters, what are you doing out here?"

A sigh of relief fell from my lips. "Our car ran out of gas. Could you give us a ride?"

"Where are you headed?"

"Briarcliff."

At this, he furrowed his brow. A frown of confusion, rather than irritation. Then, from behind the stout frame of his body, a man in police uniform appeared, his hand on his belt. I saw a police car pulled over behind this car.

"Everything okay here, sport?" the man said.

Castelo said yes. "Their car's out of fuel. Request backup. Tell them to take these ladies home, too."

The uniformed officer threw a glance at us. He walked back to the police car, with unenthusiastic gait.

"No, we can't go home," I said to Castelo.

"You need to stay home and let us handle this," he said. "I thought we'd made it clear."

"But I can't—" I dug my nails into the palms. The pain, then, cast a ray of light in my mind. I looked up. "Take us with you, and we'll help. We can show you around that place."

"It's a terrible idea, Miss Winters."

"Briarcliff is a dungeon. You could overlook anything, and that'll only delight them. Let us look with you. I promise both of us would be great assets."

With a pensive air, he looked at Barren in the car. I could hear the gears inside his head hard at work, as he rubbed his chin. At last, he drew out a breath.

"Alright, ladies," he said. "Give them the car key. They will make sure the car will be towed away. Hop in. Do you have anything left in your car?"

I shook my head, and handed the key to one of the officers. My whole being pulsated with the newly provided hope. The muscles around my mouth twitched, in a weak smile. We hopped in the backseat of their car. Barren turned around in his seat, and his eyes travelled between me and Mary, rather puzzled. Mary greeted him. The cigarette between his lips made a faint sizzling noise. When Castelo got back in his seat, those googly eyes moved to look at the young detective.

Castelo gave him a concise account of the situation.

A shadow of apprehension crept up to me, then. I studied Barren's expression, the depths of the creases in his forehead, as much as I could from behind. I kept my body tense. Despite this feeling, however, the thin lips of Barren never moved to protest. He only puffed his cigarette, as he started the car.

* * *

 **A/N:** hiya! I started a new Foxxay fic. check it out and leave a comment :D


	38. Chapter 38

Now I got the complete support from both of the detectives. I felt optimistic, enough to let my body relax in my seat at last. But, that respite had such a short lifespan, as Mary gave a few pulls at my sleeve.

The color of misgiving remained strong in her gaze. Her lips moved, mouthing something.

"What?" I said. "I can't hear you."

She bit her lip. She brought her mouth close to my ear, with her hand hiding the mouth from the front seat. "Do you have the knife with you?" she asked.

At once, as though at the flick of a switch, my internal peace vanished. My mind became blank. I pulled away, and gawked at her. "Shit," I said.

But there was no way out. I might as well have put handcuffs on myself on my own volition. As the car drove past Louise's, one of the officers signaled Barren to stop. In his hand, the edge of the knife gave an uncanny gleam. I did not pray for myself. I just wished to get this over with.

Barren rolled down his window. "What is it?"

The officer came near. "A kitchen knife, sir. It was in the backseat, naked like this."

The gaze of Castelo, as he turned around, immediately found me. Although it didn't feel all accusatory, it made my breathing difficult enough.

"Could you explain why you have a bare knife in your car?" he said.

I felt Mary squirm next to me, mumbling under her breath.

"I went to a cutler yesterday," I said, in the calmest tone of my voice. "I forgot to bring it back in the house."

No doubt any of them bought this spontaneous bullshit. But they had no proof of it being a lie, either.

A crease reappeared between his brows. He slid a contemplative glance at Barren, and receiving a shrug as a response, he chewed the inside of his cheek. Even then, he seemed reluctant to kick us out.

"Do you have any other weapons with you that we should know of?" he said.

I said no.

"And you, Miss McKee?"

As soon as Mary's eyes met his, she straightened her back, and shook her head. Her cheeks grew red at once.

"I trust both of you on that," Castelo said.

Then, with no further interrogation, he got off the car, walked across the street, to the officer. I pressed my cheek against the window for a better view, as he put a distance between us. The two officers and Castelo now stood by Louise's car. The distance and the rumble of the idling engine made their voices inaudible. Castelo had his back facing us, too, shielding his face from me. I kept staring nonetheless. I saw him shake his head a couple of times, and hold his hand up to make one of the officers stop talking. Disapproving grimaces grew more apparent on the faces of the officers. They looked more menacing, as they gestured at Louise's car, and at me behind the window.

In contrast to the eternal throbbing of my heart, though, their disagreement didn't last long. Castelo gave each of them amicable pads on their shoulder. The facial muscles, as he returned to the car, seemed less tense.

Back in his seat, he let loose a sharp breath of relief. "Well, this has been an unexpected adventure already." His voice had a tinge of calmness. "Now, let's go take care of the real business."

With that cue, at last, the car hit the road. In the last several minutes, the sky had darkened without mercy. Only a thin streak of orange light glimmered along the mountain ridges. The window next to Barren remained wide open, the crispy air whooshing through each strand of my hair.

I studied the profile of Castelo, his chiseled cheek and well-shaved chin. Something about him didn't click, my gut told me. As grateful as I felt for his help, I couldn't shake off an eerie feeling, couldn't help allowing doubt to gnaw at me. Those uniformed officers obviously wanted to get me to go through the proper procedure, or at least to take us to the station. It should've been a perfect opportunity for Castelo to get rid of us. But on the contrary, he bothered to persuade them. His enthusiasm began to trouble me, then.

This is one of the saddest things about life, to harbor a mistrust towards people who do not think twice to help others and ask for nothing in return. The embodiment of self-sacrifice. They deserve the utmost respect. And yet, the truth is almost the opposite, always. As you grow older, you learn that such people are a rare species. Most of them only pretend to be so kind, waiting for the perfect moment, like a tiger in the bushes. So, even when you meet a genuine one, a compulsive uneasiness overwhelms you instead of respect. You suspect they might have an ulterior motive. And you regard them with more caution than your obvious enemy.

Was Castelo's passion authentic, without any sinister intentions? Or were we his prey, oblivious to the danger until the last minute?

I didn't ask. I felt like the moment I dared to utter those doubts, everything would turn into mist. However, the answer presented itself quite soon.

Castelo reached for the case file on the dashboard. He switched on the light above his head, and started to read something.

"Barren," he said, "your handwriting looks like a snail just crawled across the paper again."

"I was listening to her—" Barren waved his cigarette to the backseat "—and writing at the same time. You can read it. What more do you want?"

It was the record of my oral statement about Wendy. Castelo must've jumped in the car, as soon as he obtained the warrant, and hadn't been able to read the paper until now. He brought the document closer to the light. The photograph of Wendy, the one I'd given Barren, came into my view. With her elbow placed on the table in the diner, she rested her cheek on her hand, looking a little beyond the camera lens. Now, her shy smile seemed dejected, trapped.

I averted my eyes. Then, in the rearview mirror, I caught Castelo glance at me. He looked down at the paper right away, and looked up at me again. His slightly parted lips and round eyes seemed to betray a mixture of curiosity and distress.

"Miss Winters," he said, in a still professional tone. "It says here that you were an inmate there once."

"I was, for two months."

He nodded, mostly to himself. "And Miss McKee used to work there." He turned his head around, then, to look directly at Mary, too. Some dark shadow crept across his features. "Right, so you two are the people Davis was talking about so passionately."

"Who's Davis?"

"The young officer at the reception desk," he said. "He seems to be obsessed with you. Not a day goes without him talking about you."

With no remnants of the enigmatic shadow, he gave a smile. Although the smile looked soft, I couldn't decide whether it should alarm us. A smile of real kindness, or a smile of mockery. I felt a knot in my stomach, my throat dry. This could be the moment his kind guise fell off, revealing his true self to us. Mary and I exchanged a look of uncertainty.

"What are you talking about?" Barren said.

Castelo looked at him, raising his brows. "Davis. Don't you know? He's been complaining for the last few weeks."

"I never understand a word that kid says."

A soft chuckle fell from Castelo's lips. He waved a dismissive hand. "Lucky you." Then, his eyes found us in the mirror again. "I apologize on behalf of Davis. We are public servants. We shouldn't decide who to help based on who they are."

Of course, this threw me off my balance. It felt like opening up a box and finding it filled with flowers, when I had expected to see a bomb. Not that my suspicion vanished to the last bit, though. I gave him a simple nod.

Castelo closed the report, as he switched off the light. With no streetlights, I could barely see the others' silhouettes in the dark.

"I should've read your complaint form," he said. "I would've known it was about Briarcliff. We can't do anything about it now without another warrant for it, but I promise, I will help you."

I leaned forward. "Really?"

"I truly believe they've wronged you, Miss Winters." He tightened his lips into a smile, compassionate and somewhat distraught. "I've been to that place several times before. I've seen what kind of place it is."

"You have?" I said.

He nodded his head. "Is the lady with Boston accent still in charge, or has anyone replaced her yet?"

"Jude? I don't think she'll ever leave her office as long as she breathes."

"That's what I thought."

Next to me, Mary looked at him with attentive air. For the first time since her return, something other than pain and anguish seemed to tug at her heartstrings— Curiosity. Inside the quiet world of her, questions seemed to emerge, bubbling. Still, she remained a passive listener.

"If you don't mind me asking," I said to Castelo. "How did you come to know Briarcliff and Jude? Have they been involved in a criminal case before?"

"Not a criminal case, no," he said. He lowered his gaze, then. "It's just that my older sister used to be an inmate."

"How long was she locked up?"

"Six years and four months." His voice sounded unwavering, as though he had the data right in front of his eyes. "And we only visited her a few times during that time." He stared out the windshield. The fragments of light from the headlights traced out the outline of his chiseled face.

"You've never told me about that, sport," Barren said.

"It's not something I'm proud of," Castelo said. Then, right away, he twisted his body at the waist, to show his distressed grimace to us. "I mean, not proud of myself and my family. We treated her like a blot on the family name, simply because she was . . . more sensitive than the rest of us."

"May I ask what happened to her?" I said. "You said she's no longer in there. Is she out now?"

He remained in the same position, facing us. "She died."

So, this was his reason, what kept pulling him to the place. I should've expected an answer like this, but it made my words stuck in the throat nonetheless.

"Inside that place?" I asked. However intrusive this might sound, it felt like a crucial question, in order to understand his story. I felt like he wanted me to ask it.

And he gave a nod. "Three years ago. All of a sudden. They said they didn't know what happened." A strand of his dark hair fell into his face, as he bowed his head.

"I'm sorry," I said. "Jude has your sister's blood on her hands."

"Olga," he said.

"I'm sorry?"

"Her name is Olga. The best older sister anyone could have. I've never met anyone with a kinder soul. I'm now as old as she was when she died, but I'm not even half as good."

The air became chilling, as the silence resounded in my ears. I felt Mary's hand slip out of mine.

Castelo's eyes sought Mary in the rearview mirror, as if he knew. "Miss McKee, how long were you a staff member there?"

Mary truly looked like a deer in the headlights, wide-eyed, frozen in fear. The paleness of her face seemed to float in the dark, and only added morbidity to the image. She opened her mouth, but struggled to speak. "For five years, sir," she said at last.

"Do you remember her?" Castelo said. "Black hair, grey eyes, like me?"

"Yes, I do." She sounded vulnerable, ready to disappear. "She was gentle."

"I want to find out what really happened to her," he said. "I didn't care about it at that time. But I do now. The truth might be lost forever, but at least, if I could bring to light the injustice that's still taking place there . . . As much as I want to say I'm here as a public servant, I can't deny I'm doing for my family. I want justice for my sister, and redemption for myself."

Mary hung her head, her face twisted in emotion. Behind the engine sound, I heard her shell thicken, as she retreated into it.

.

Under the thick shroud of night, we drove past the abominable motel, where the bear-looking man slept. The parking lot had a couple of cars, parked near the door to the reception room. Their electric sign remained broken. I had no reason to believe they'd gotten the payphone fixed, either. The room at the far end of the building seemed to have nobody in it. The place with a shoe print in the ceiling. The place where Wendy and Mary had met for the first time.

It was only a couple of weeks ago. All of the calamities had happened in such a short period of time. But such defining moments happen in a blink most of the time, and we only give them eternity afterwards, in our minds, in excitement and sorrow.

The car took a turn to the right. Trees began to appear on either side of the road. In the headlights, the grove seemed to undulate, luring us into another world. Goosebumps covered my skin.

"We are almost there," Barren said.

Mary and I ducked our heads, and looked out the windshield. Beyond the beams of light from the headlights, columns and rows of little orange dots twinkled in the dark, growing bigger and more vivid by the second. Then, soon, these dots began to have the shape of windows. Briarcliff, in its night form. Mary's frame shivered. Through our connected shoulders, the tremor travelled to me, down my spine. I gave her hand a tight squeeze.

After nearly an hour drive, at last, the car stopped in front of the closed gate of Briarcliff Manor. The headlights reflected off the metal bars. The doubled brightness blinded my eyes that had gotten accustomed to darkness.

The detectives showed the guard their police badges and the warrant. Barren gave him a brief account of their objective, in the flattest tone. The guard took the warrant for examination, mumbling something. The only source of light around him was a little lamp inside the guardhouse. I couldn't see his face. But it was most likely a skeptical frown.

"I have to ask Sister Jude," the guard said. "She's in charge here."

"She doesn't have a say in this." Barren sounded extra aloof. "It's a court order. If you refuse to let us in, you'll be arrested for obstruction of justice, my fellow."

Castelo bent towards the driver's seat, towards the guardhouse. "And please be advised that two more officers will join us later. They are taking care of something else at the moment."

The guard leaned out of the plain hut, then. "Who's in the backseat? I can't see."

I scooted back, and hid Mary and myself in the shadow. I couldn't explain why I did it. He couldn't have done anything to us, had he seen our faces. But shadow has a certain element to it, that draws people in. No matter how innocent or strong we may be, in blazing light, our instinct kicks in, and we retreat into the dark, to feel a sense of security.

"They are our helpers," Castelo said. "Our investigation team members."

A short moment of reluctance filled the blank. The guard examined the warrant once again. The engine rumbled, too loudly under the open sky. Castelo slid a glance at us, shot a reassuring smile.

At last, the guard gave back the warrant to them, came out of the guardhouse, and opened the gate. Barren parked the car near the front steps of the building. Mary's hand sought mine, as she looked out the window. The whole building seemed even more menacing, more malicious, than I remembered.


	39. Chapter 39

Castelo turned around to us. "Don't leave our side, and we see to it that they'd never lay a finger on either of you."

In the entrance hall, the statue of the Virgin Mary welcomed us back with open arms, literally. But her smile of mercy seemed cruel, judgemental, as she looked down at us. The eyes of white marble seemed to mock me for every single one of my mistakes. _Talk about the eye of the beholder . . ._ The hall was relatively silent. Some shrieks pierced through the dense air, but the owners of those screams remained invisible. The staff members scuttled across the hall, hurried their way up and down _the Stairway to Heaven_ , like mindless wheels and cogs of a giant machine.

"May I help you?" The man at the guard room regarded us with suspicion. With narrowed eyes, he studied the detectives first, and shifted his attention to us. He widened his eyes, then, as I looked back at him.

But the detectives didn't give him a chance to speak. Castelo flashed his badge, and held the warrant right in his stupefied face. "We have come to look for a missing person. Would you care to take us to Sister Jude's office?"

Although he spoke at his regular volume, it echoed too well in the dome of a hall. A few heads turned, their steps slowing down for a moment.

I pat him on the shoulder from behind. "We can show you. Follow us."

And Mary and I led the way. At the sight of us, some people gasped, some murmured. One sister, as we walked past her on the stairs, gawked at us, with her hand pressed to her chest, as though she'd seen not one but two ghosts.

Jude, on the other hand, didn't display any sign of bewilderment or agitation. She only furrowed her brow in annoyance, when Barren opened the door without knocking. Her eyes made a swift travel from the detectives, to me and Mary behind them. Still, her countenance remained calm. Not only that. A tiny, but arrogant smirk was tugging at the corner of her mouth, as she made a grand gesture of standing up.

Castelo took a step forward. "I'm Detective Castelo. This is Detective Barren. We are here to—"

"Yes, yes, I understand," Jude said, in her flattering tone. Her smirk grew wider. "You have my sincerest gratitude for bringing our patients back to us. We've been searching for them everywhere, but these two love birds . . . Even chameleons wouldn't compare to their deceitful skills."

I held myself from jumping her. "You know better than anybody how false that is," I said.

But Jude acted as though she'd heard nothing. She snapped her fingers at the guards, who stood just outside the office. They reached for me and Mary, ready to put us in straightjackets.

"Do not touch them." Castelo shielded us from their filthy hands. He turned back to Jude. "These two are our important assistants. We've come for a missing person's case. Wendy Peyser. A friend of Miss Winters' here."

A snicker fell from Jude's curled lips. "A friend."

"We have a reason to believe Miss Peyser had visited you before her disappearance," Castelo said. "Here's the search warrant." He handed the document to her.

And yet, with the ever confident air, Jude didn't so much as to give it a squint. "Well, whatever your _reason_ is," she said, "I only saw her so-called friend a few months back. That's the first and the last time."

"A lie," I said. "She came to get me back at the end of last year. And she came here yesterday."

Jude did throw a glance at me this time, with the familiar, merciless intensity in the eyes. Still, she gave the detectives an obedient smile. "You may search anywhere you'd like, gentlemen. Go talk to the staff, ask the patients. They'll be more than happy to help you, I'm certain."

"We appreciate your cooperation," Castelo said. "And if I may ask one more thing, we will need an entire set of keys for this place."

"Your wish is my command."

Before we left the office, I turned around to give her a last glare. Her eyes stared back at me. The infernal flames in them made the wood in the fireplace crack.

.

Back in the entrance hall, two other officers caught up with the team. We divided into two groups, then. Barren and one of the officers would search the west wing and other small rooms behind _the Stairway to Heaven_ , while Castelo and the older officer would be in charge of the east wing and the basement. Mary wanted to to tag along with Castelo, to my surprise. And if that was what she wished for, I had no more reasons to oppose.

"I think we should start with the basement," I said to Castelo. "That's where the solitary confinement is."

We descended the stairs. The sound of our footsteps bounced off the concrete walls and the low ceiling. As we proceeded deeper, particles in the air grew damp and heavy. Not due to bad plumbing, but rather due to a lack of it.

The uniformed officer coughed. "What is this smell?"

"Filth and sickness," I said. "They are being forced to eat and sleep in the same cell with their excretions. The filth buckets are only emptied every three days."

"My nose could fall off."

The first cell had no inmate in it. Castelo switched on his flashlight, and stepped inside. The beam of light flew from one corner to another. He shook his head at the empty filth bucket in the corner.

"I never imagined the condition to be this awful . . ." he said.

"It won't get any worse than this," I said. "This place is the literal dumpster. They throw troublemakers in here, like real garbage."

A deep sigh of frustration escaped his lips, as he stepped out of the cell. He threw light on the corridor ahead of us.

This was when the corridor door behind us opened with a creepy creak. Mary jumped and clung to my arm. Castelo's flashlight shone on the khaki fabric of the guard uniform, and a golden badge on the chest. There, none other than the hellhound, Sánchez, stood, looking gloomy as usual. His gills moved, as he chewed gum. His eyes gleamed under the bushy unibrow.

Castelo lowered his light, and introduced himself.

Sánchez came to shake hands with him and the officer. "Name's Sánchez. Sister Jude directed me to follow your instructions." Then, his eyes found Mary. "Welcome back, sister. It's good to see you again, in such . . ." He tightened his lips, as he regarded her dress. ". . . colorful clothes. Sister Jude told us what happened, but I don't believe her. I still have faith in you. Tell me, you're not really one of the homos, are you?"

I pulled the stiff frame of Mary behind me. "Stay away from us."

That fucking old hag. When Castelo's demand was to only have the keys, Jude chose to send them with this human, the man of rage and hate, as though they naturally came bundled with him. This was not a coincidence. I had seen too much of Jude to think for a second it was so. She wanted him to keep an eye on us, and Sánchez himself, too, had his own motives. Namely, to harm me and declare victory over the homosexuals.

"So, how many inmates are confined here?" Castelo asked.

Sánchez shrugged. "I don't know. Five or ten." The sound of his chewing echoed in the dark.

"What do you mean you don't know?" the officer said. "Aren't they supposed to be under your care?"

Sánchez's mouth stopped. It might've been the first time someone ever questioned his capability that way, and it happened to be someone he couldn't intimidate. This clearly put him in an awkward position. Instead of a sufficient answer, Sánchez just flashed a crooked smile, putting his bared teeth under the guise of submission.

It pleased me a little. "You don't keep track of how many dustballs there are under your bed," I spoke under my breath.

Although it was true this made me feel superior to him, I don't know if I meant this for Sánchez to hear. But my whisper travelled through the air, without any kinds of obstacles. His crude mask of a smile came off. Shadow found its way in every crease in his face, as he threw me a nasty glare.

And his gaze remained menacing on me, while we searched every cell. I kept myself on toes. I never showed him my back. Even then, if I could grow a third eye in the back of my head, I would've, too. We stood and moved like two opposing magnetic fields. The distance between us was not a choice, but law of nature.

Castelo and the officer illuminated every corner, as though looking for a single mouse. But not even a mouse ran in the basement. Wendy was nowhere to be seen. We only discovered more atrocious reality of the life down here, and it made our spirits less and less bright. Everytime I called out her name, a maniac squeal and laughter answered, and nothing else.

In the end, we went back upstairs. The weight of disappointment felt heavy on my shoulders.

"I don't get it," I said. "I really thought she'd be there. It's the best place to hide someone."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the triumphant smirk on Sánchez's face.

"It's too early to be disappointed," Castelo said. He gestured to the door across the hall, then. "Let's look in there next. Where does the door lead to?"

"The old female ward."

The place didn't hold any positive memories for me. At the first step into it, the smell of dusty air brought back the revelation of Olga, Mary's betrayal, and the heartbreak and shattered hope. I stood at the door Grace had tried the coat hanger on. On the ground, the cigarette butts from the day were still there, scattered, untouched, and unchanged. When I saw this, it struck me how far I'd come, and how far I still had to go. Even with Mary by my side now, the pain still lingered in the corner of my heart. I knew, then, it'd take years for things to even start to heal.

I looked at Mary. She was looking down at the cigarettes, too, with tightened lips. As if she knew the story of them, how they'd ended up here. I wondered what was on her troubled mind at that particular moment. Since we'd crossed the threshold of Briarcliff, no word had left her lips, except when she expressed her desire to go with Castelo.

Yet, Castelo came back from the far end of the corridor, and ended my short musing. They found nothing.

The result was the same in the current female ward. Only, it took more time, as we had to look at everyone's face. Some already had their faces visible to us. Some cooperated either with extreme excitement or extreme reluctance. But a small number of the inmates refused to show their faces, terrified of the strangers beyond words. The presence of Mary did not help, either. They probably only saw the modern dress on her.

The occupant of my old cell was one of these scared people. When we looked into her cell, the woman jumped off the bed, and stood in the corner, her eyes wide in terror. Castelo apologized, in a sincere tone, for the disturbance. They moved onto the next cell, then. But the sight of my old bed, the unique peeling paint of the headboard, awoke another memory, and I pushed the metal door further open to step inside. The woman let out distressed cries at this intrusion.

"I'm sorry. I'll be quick."

I crouched down by the bed, and stuck my hand under the mattress. My fingers touched small, folded pieces of paper inside it. I pulled all of them out. It felt like taking back pieces of myself, to see them in my hands. Now, only the failure of a coat hanger would remain inside it for an eternity.

Mary cast a curious eye at the notes, as I walked back to her.

"Your letters," I said, smoothing the wrinkles. "I'm glad I remembered them."

She lifted the corner of her mouth, to mimic the form of a smile. The gloom in her eyes never seemed to dissipate, however, not even for a moment. In silence she began to walk away. I stopped her, with my hand on her arm.

"Listen, Mary. I'm sorry I haven't been able to pay attention to you," I said. "I'm so tactless. When one thing occupies my mind, I get totally blind to other things. But it doesn't mean you're less important to me. I want you to know that."

I looked up, and found her eyes, soft and delicate. Although sadness lingered in them, they didn't look lost, like they had a minute ago. She nodded.

"I do," she said. "I know."

Then, she wrapped her arms around my neck, and pulled me into her arms. She dug her fingers into my shoulders, trying to take hold of me even tighter. It felt different from any other embraces we'd shared, and not just in terms of the strength of it. She didn't let go for some moments, despite the presence of others. Or, she might not have cared.

Something was changing within her, as slow and imperceptible as it might be.

And as we parted, she took my hand. We caught up with Castelo. There, Sánchez's eyes flashed in hostile light. With his hand rested on his police baton, he moved those eyes to Mary. His expression remained the same. The color of disgust only grew more vivid, as it fused with strong disappointment.

Mary comprehended the meaning of the look without a doubt. Still, she neither flinched nor let go of me. Even with her gaze downwards, she didn't bow her head. She looked a little taller.

Back in the main hall, we saw Barren's team ascend to the same floor as us. They also had a guard dogging their footsteps. Barren spotted us, then. His walk did not slow down on the stairs, but he shook his head to us. It remained unclear whether it was directed at our wordless question, the pestering guard, or the chaos that was Briarcliff. Perhaps, at all of the three. Even across the hall, the wrinkles in his face looked clear enough.

I could relate to it. I felt too tired, too drained to entertain any emotions any more. My legs grew like stones, as we were headed for the floor above.

* * *

 **For the people who give me feedbacks, I praise your existence. Thank you, truly.**


	40. Chapter 40

The common room looked all the same, with the same music and lunacy that I had left behind. But the TV now displayed something non-Christmas related, and the designated couch of mine had someone else in it, the ashtray empty and pushed aside.

As we stood in the center of the room, a shrill shriek disrupted the stagnant stillness. With a full-blown smile, Pepper came trotting towards us. Her topknot bounced. The pitter-patter of her feet sounded a little too desperate, as though she hadn't had any other companions than her rag doll for the past two weeks.

This was only then did Mary let go of my hand. Although she approached Pepper with open arms, however, Castelo came to stand between them like a professional bodyguard. He held his hand out, palm facing outward towards Pepper. The little inmate stopped dead in her tracks. She brought her doll closer to her face, hugging it tight, as if to protect it from the unknow stout man in black.

"She isn't dangerous, sir," Mary said, urgency in her voice.

And when Castelo stepped aside, she slowly walked to Pepper, and embraced the frightened pinhead and her doll. The tiny arms of Pepper came around Mary's waist. Mary stroked her head, fiddled with the green ribbon she had given to Pepper for Christmas.

I looked about, in search of two certain faces. But I only saw the familiar, depressing faces of the nameless inmates in every corner. The grey and washed-away blue of the whole picture made it even dire than I remembered, gave me a faint onset of anxiety. I looked down at my own dress, as I ran my fingers across the thick fabric. Not _the cheap hospital gown._

Then, I found Grace coming towards me. Her face had an almost unnoticeable roundness now, and it crossed my mind that we hadn't seen each other since the night of the failed escape. It was before the news about her pregnancy, before things got a little more complicated. We shared a hug, in silent joy to see each other alive.

"Where's Kit?" I asked.

"He left a while ago. The police found the real Bloody Face, so Jude released him."

"She did? I never expected it to be done so speedily," I said the second part almost to myself. "Good. Well, at least this is a weight off my shoulders." I felt a bit adrift. It felt like a dream, coming true all of a sudden in my absence.

Grace slid a nervous glance behind me. "What's going on, Lana? Why did you and Mary Eunice come back?"

"I'm looking for Wendy."

"Wendy, your girlfriend?"

I nodded. "She went missing yesterday. It's a long story, but she left for this place to see Jude. I'm scared that she has gotten trapped like me."

Grace furrowed her brow. "We haven't had anyone new for the last two weeks. But maybe Jude wants this hidden even from us. Have you looked in the basement?"

"She wasn't in solitary or anywhere we've looked so far. We are searching the whole building, but . . ."

Castelo came to me. "Nothing's here, either, Miss Winters. Shall we go upstairs?"

I gave him a heavy nod, and bade Grace goodbye. "I'm sorry I can't stay here longer."

"You'll find her," she said, with determined optimism in her tone.

The news about Kit gave me a temporary relief in the midst of this fruitless quest. It cast a ray of light in the vast expanse of darkness.

And Mary, too, seemed slightly less tense, less depressed, as Pepper clung to her. On her face was a slight smile, no creases of agony between her brows. I supposed it was the moment Mary felt the least powerless. In that moment with Pepper, she could be the protector, instead of the one protected. There was a special bond between them. Different from what Mary and I had, but still strong and unique.

"I have to go now," Mary said, looking into her eyes. "But I promise, Pepper, I will come see you. I will bring pretty ribbons for you and Elsa—" she glanced down at the rag doll— "and I will play with you."

At first, Pepper refused to let go of her. She shook her little head, with teary eyes, like a child on her first day at kindergarten. It took more promises to convince her. And in the end, they parted with a pinky promise, a slender finger interlocked with a rugged one.

We left the common room, and ascended the stairs, then.

I felt a knot in my stomach, as the skylight above grew closer to me. It felt like walking towards the judgement day. The fourth floor was the uppermost floor of Briarcliff. Would this be _the third time's a charm_? Had Barren found her in the west wing? I didn't want to think about any other possibilities.

This had to be it.

"She truly adores you," Castelo said to Mary. "That pinhead girl. You must've been a wonderful sister."

Mary, as she walked behind me, blushed from ear to ear. Her lips tightened.

If Castelo had seen it, he would've considered it as a mere blush out of humility, the one that comes from unfamiliarity with compliments, and nothing more. But I knew it was not. Behind her bangs, there must've been the beginning of tears in her eyes. Such compliment was only cruel to her, when it came from a brother of Olga.

"So, what do we have upstairs?" Castelo said, oblivious.

The answer didn't come to me right away. The fourth floor of the west wing had Jude's office and the infirmary. But I didn't remember ever going to the east wing on the floor.

"There's," Mary said, in a tearful voice. "There's Dr. Arden's office and laboratory."

.

To our bewilderment, we found the office's door wide open. The tune of Dominique barely reached this secluded area, and only the high notes sifted through the air from time to time.

The office didn't seem so different from Jude's in terms of size. Yet, his office was the polar opposite of hers, with countless objects occupying space. Although I couldn't see Arden or anyone in the room, I heard the crackling sound of fire somewhere near. A fireplace. Jude didn't have that in her office. The blaze of the invisible fire was the sole source of light in the room, only bright enough to distinguish the floor from the furniture. The pungent smell of chemicals floated in the air. It seeped through my clothes, my skin. Even with no wind blowing, some chilly sensations coursed through my body. The place felt like it belonged to an entirely different realm, instead of being part of Briarcliff.

I felt Mary shiver, as she came near me. Together we hid ourselves behind the doorframe. Sánchez stepped in first. Castelo and the officer followed in.

Sánchez looked to the part hidden behind the door. "Dr. Arden, these fellas are with the police. They want to search your office and lab."

Then, there came slow, cautious footsteps. I peeped in through the hinge gap, and got a glimpse of a tall man by the fireplace. It was all his silhouette against the light.

"What for?" Arden's voice, despite its quietness, made the walls vibrate. "Don't tell me you still believe the story of that sleazy whore."

Castelo used his polite tone, as he explained and denied his assumption, whatever it was about. "We won't bother you for long. Just need to take a quick look."

After a brief pause, Arden held out his arm in a welcoming gesture.

Castelo and the officer began to examine the office. They tapped the walls, checked the inside of the closets and drawers. Their search was way more thorough than in the other places. It pleased me a little to watch their instinctive skepticism towards Arden manifest itself like this, to watch Arden's shadow walk around in discomfort. Still, it ended up being futile. They moved into the adjoining laboratory.

I slightly put my head around the door, to follow them with my eyes. This reckless action, however, attracted attention from Arden. The silhouette of his turned its dark head around to me. I felt like our eyes met. Although I jumped right back behind the doorframe, the ghostly footsteps came nearer anyway.

As he stepped out to the cold hallway, his features became visible. He looked down at me, unamused, with his lips tight in the perfect shape of a horizontal _I_. We stared at each other.

But the presence of Mary behind me caught his eyes. The sadistic air around him dissolved at once, and he smiled at her with his eyes. He took one step forward, as though I wasn't standing there between them. In defiance, and as a shield, I remained firm on the ground.

"It's good to see you again, sister," Arden said.

Behind my back, Mary squeezed my hand. "I'm not a nun anymore, Dr. Arden." Her fragile breath stroked the back of my neck. "I left behind my life at Briarcliff. I only came back to look for my . . . my friend."

"I see. It's quite noble of you. Although, I do have to question Miss Winters' decision to bring you here and make you walk around so much. Considering your health, it's best you rest in bed." Despite the topic being me, he continued to act like I wasn't there.

Mary stayed wordless for some moments. And then, she loosened her grip on my hand. "You really were there," she said, in a tone that sounded no longer frightened. "At the hospital. It wasn't a dream."

I didn't understand it at first. It still baffles me how quickly Mary could catch on that. They were talking about the day the police found her in the street.

A smile flickered across his long, greyish face. "I didn't expect you to know, but yes." He looked bashful, like a teenage boy. "It was by sheer luck that I went there to inquire for you at that particular hour of day. The doctor who treated you overheard me at the reception."

"You knew who she was," I said. "Why didn't you tell the people? They were trying to identify her."

At this, he scowled at me, curling his lip slightly. But he spoke to Mary all the same. "I only wanted to make sure of your safety. And I came back to take care of important businesses of mine."

I wanted to bite back. Whatever his reasoning was, his intentions had to be self-centered.

But before I could, the footsteps of Castelo and the officer returned. I forgot Arden altogether. The beat of my heart gained speed for another reason now. I strained my ears, for the third person's footsteps. Still, only two people stepped out of the office. The slight frown on Castelo's face told me everything— Wendy wasn't there. I felt my strength leave me, as my world became too quiet and too noisy at the same time.

Wendy wasn't there!

Castelo suggested we go back to Jude's office, in order to await Barren's team. Mary put her hand on my shoulder, the other in my hand, and began to walk.

"Sister." Arden stopped her. "You say you're no longer a nun. But have you renounced your sisterhood? Have you abdicated your calling and abandoned your God?"

Mary faltered, but said no.

"Then you are a sister. A good one at that, still."

Emotions didn't reveal themselves on her face. She just looked straight at him, without a shadow of fear. Although her lips parted, no word came out. At last, she gave him a small nod, and began to walk away again.

###

I stood in the corner of Jude's office, close to the door, with my back to the wall. Jude continued to work at her fastidious desk. Nothing else made a sound, beside the rustling of paper and the tip of her fountain pen scratching. It was still enough to set my teeth on edge.

I looked over at Jude, and at the cursed closet of canes across the room. The mere sight of the closed wooden doors roused sick feelings in my guts. I glared at them. The scar tissue in my butt pulsated, remembering the pain and the humiliation.

With my mind swarmed with thoughts, I only felt Mary by my side, listless. She would turn her head around this way and that, and the faintest sigh would fall from her lips. Her inner voice was loud, but I couldn't bother to decipher the language in that moment.

Sánchez, with his work done, had left. Castelo also had gone to find Barrent, leaving the officer to keep us safe.

The officer now stood in the other corner of the room, flipping through the Bible he picked up from a chest of drawers there. He looked bored. For him, this whole thing was another normal day of his job. Nothing special. No aftertaste. At the end of the day, he could go home, and perhaps tell his wife what the enigmatic Briarcliff Manor looked like on the inside. And his wife might allow him an extra glass of bourbon, and that'd be it.

But to me, it felt like waiting for the result of an already lost war. The large portion of my hope had died down, on the way back from the dark basement. I knew the bell wouldn't toll. I knew the troop wouldn't come back with the flag fluttering in the wind.

And when the same steady footsteps of the detectives came from the other side of the door, I accepted the defeat, even before seeing their sympathetic faces. I looked down, as the detectives offered consolatory words.

Jude stood up in deliberate silence. "Have you found what you were searching for, gentlemen?" she said, for the sole purpose of tormenting me more.

"No, but thank you very much for your time," Castelo said.

Jude walked us out, to the top of the stairs. The entrance hall below us seemed busy, filled with the psychotic lethargy of inmates, and the contrasting bustle of staff before the dinnertime. It was such an ugly sight. You couldn't find a similar scene outside the place.

I had seen the same scene before many times before. The first time I'd set foot in this place, I found it abhorrent. But now, I knew this was the tenderest, the most peaceful part of Briarcliff. A modest dress to mask the sick skin underneath it. Now, as I looked down, a sense of acceptance resided in me along with the repulsion. For two months, Jude had fed me a small dose of poison everyday, and it had made me immune to it.

A hand came to rest on my shoulder, then. I turned around, and instead of Mary, found the wrinkled face of Jude.

I shook her off. "Do not touch me," I said through clenched teeth.

Yet, Jude smiled, with her know-it-all look. "I remember the first day you came here," she said. "In your fancy dress. With a little reporter notepad in your hands, and a proud smile on your face. You haven't changed one bit."

"That's right. I'm goddamn tough."

"I admire that part of yours, I truly do. But you could only go so far without the Lord's guidance. And I know there's a part of you that cries for atonement. I'm talking to you, too, Mary Eunice." She threw a sharp look at Mary next to me. "It's not too late to come back to us, to the Lord. You could be like me if you wished, but it cannot be achieved by yourself. We are all sheep in this vast, corrupt world. Without a shepherd, we cannot even know which way leads home." Her eyes returned to me. "I will pray for you, Miss Winters, so you could one day find the God."

Not a part of her really meant it. Everyone knew it.

"And I would pray for you, too, Jude," I said.

Without another word, I walked down the _Stairway to Heaven_ , hand in hand with Mary. Further away from the height of Heaven, where a demon stood.


	41. Chapter 41

I couldn't get myself to look up. My body felt heavy, as though every cell had turned into a pebble.

Without my notice, Mary had taken the lead, and kept me walking forward. My legs felt so far from me, so foreign, as I descended the front steps to the parked car.

In this blurry consciousness, one tile at my feet caught my eyes. It looked newer than the rest of the tiles around it, darker in color. And I remembered standing near it, when everyone watched Kit dragged out of a police wagon that fateful day. I had hurried down the same steps right after that, with a sense of excitement running through my limbs like a jolt of lightning, and gone home. To Wendy. I remembered thinking about what to cook for dinner that evening.

As I walked past the tile, a sense of dread washed over me, stronger and more imminent than ever before. A feeling more devastating than the despair of a lost battle against Jude.

 _What if I no longer had Wendy to go home to?_

The wall of my defiance came crumbling, at a gradual rate, brick by brick. My breath became short and shallow. Tiny beads of cold sweat began to cover the back my neck, and I shivered again and again, as the soft evening breeze crept under my hair.

We stood by the car.

"I'm sorry, Miss Winters," Castelo said.

Barren unlocked the car door. "Are you really sure she came here?"

"I . . . I thought she had. Where else would she be?"

I focused all of my senses on the frayed hem of Barren's pants. Barren lit a cigarette. The used match fell at his feet, emitting a stream of smoke skywards.

"We will keep searching," Castelo said. "But for now, you two should go home and rest."

The gate opened to let us out, and closed behind us. I looked back at the building. And the further the lights grew, the further I felt from Wendy. In the roaring of the engine, I still heard her cries, her calling out to me.

I slumped in my seat, as the grove of trees passed me by like my memories. Then, it reminded me of my car still hidden in the bushes. I hated that it had to come back now, but we needed to get it back at some point. After a moment of internal debate, I decided to tell the detectives about it.

I leaned forward. "I'm sorry, but my car is somewhere near in the bushes. The battery is dead. Could you get that one towed away, too, when we get back?"

"Where exactly is it?" Castelo said.

"Somewhere in there, near the gate." I gestured to my right.

Barren let out a puff of air in irritation, and the car came to an abrupt halt. The tires of the car behind us hissed against the ground, as it followed suit.

"We gotta know the exact location of your car," Barren said.

So, with the ever present look of annoyance, he changed gear and drove the car backwards. The tailgating car did the same. Probably more than fifty yards, the two cars drove in reverse. The gate of Briarcliff grew closer again.

We got out of the car, and began to tread in the woods. The officers threw light around the dark ocean of trees. Within a minute, one of them located a car closer to the walls of Briarcliff.

As I near the car in spotlight, however, the clear view of black metal came into sight.

I felt a mingled feeling of confusion and disappointment. "That isn't my car. My car is silver," I said to Barren next to me.

He creased his brow. "Then whose car is that?"

Of course, I had no clue. Had the car been there when Mary and I searched for mine two months ago? The woods in my memory remained obscure without the moonlight.

Then, Mary tugged at my sleeve. Her eyes looked ahead, anxious. "Isn't that Miss Wendy's car?" she said.

This, even before the words sank in, made the hair in the back of my neck stand up. I shivered, and buried the half bottom of my face in my scarf.

"Is it?" Barren asked me.

"I don't know," I said, looking at the car. "She bought it recently. I only remember it's black. An ordinary car."

And even as I walked closer, it remained unfamiliar to me.

Louise had said it was a Toyota, and the car in question appeared to be a black Toyota as well. That notion itself made me start to believe it was truly Wendy's. The thumping of my heart grew faster with each step. A part of me wished it to be hers, while another part wished for an opposite outcome.

 _What if I found her cold body there?_

Once the harassing thought entered my mind, I could neither shake it off, nor take another step forward. Only a couple of steps away from the car, I looked at Mary.

"Can you look inside?" The fragility of my voice surprised even me.

So, Mary did, bringing her face close to the window of the driver's seat. "I don't see anything," she said. "But, I do think this is Miss Wendy's. The number plate, it looks familiar."

Barren lit the inside with his flashlight, from the other side of the car. "The key's left in the lock."

"We can't do anything without another warrant for the car," Castelo said. "If it happens to be someone else's—"

But Barren pulled the door open. He shrugged at his rule-abiding partner. "Wasn't locked."

I went ahead and opened the door to the driver's seat. As I put my head in it, a scent of a delicate perfume drifted into my nose. A familiar scent. Cherry blossom.

"It's Wendy's," I said. My own words hit like a blow in the stomach.

I looked up at Castelo, as though he had the answer to my in spoken question. But there was an equal level of distress and confusion in his grey eyes. In silence, he again cast light around us, studying the surroundings.

"Try to see if there isn't really anything in there," Barren said. "We might find something that suggests where she went."

I looked inside the glove box, the ashtray, the space around the pedals, behind the sun visors. But I only found her gloves and a notepad. Nothing of significance. I flipped through the notepad, in the hope that she'd left me a message.

Behind me, I felt the presence of Mary, searching the back seats. With a flashlight in her hand, she fumbled about the underside of the front seats. The light flickered, as it illuminated the back of my ankles.

Then, she rested her hand on my shoulder. "Lana, this was under the seat," Mary said, and put her finding in front of my face.

It was a simple, dark-green purse. Barren cast a spotlight on it, making its golden latch twinkle.

At the sight, the chilling sensation in my veins got worse than ever. "Her purse," I said to Barren.

"Look inside. It was obviously hidden. We might find something."

It didn't contain a lot of things in it. It made sense. Wendy's plan—our plan—was to drive to Briarcliff, see Jude, obtain my death certificate, and drive home. All she needed was her wallet, her pocket watch, and the keys. But, in the inner pocket of the purse, I found a sheet of paper, its white corner sticking out. I unfolded it. At first glance, it looked like an ordinary official document, with black-and-white emblems and boring numbers. On closer inspection, however, I saw what it really was.

 _CERTIFICATE OF DEATH_ , it said in the upper part of the paper. Under the monotonous letters, a dull paragraph in much smaller text followed, concluded with

 _the death of_

and in the next paragraph,

 _LANA WINTERS,_ handwritten.

The middle part of the paper stated more specific information—place of birth, age, address, and so on.

I looked up at Barren. "It's my death certificate. I need more light."

He and Mary brought their flashlights right above the paper. I read the whole thing, from corner to corner, without missing a single typo.

 _Date of death: Seventeenth December 1964_

 _Cause of death: Inhalation of vomit. Diarrheal infections._

 _Place of burial: -_

 _Signature of informant: Judy Martin_

My heart nearly leaped out of my chest at the last bit of information. The signature revealed the personality of the informant quite well, rigid and fastidious. I felt dizzy and short of breath, as I showed it to Mary.

"Here." I pointed at the signature. "Isn't this Jude's name and signature?"

The light of her flashlight reflected off the whiteness of the document, and illuminated her face. She looked at it, and cast an anxious eye over the rest of the paper. She gave a stupefied nod, then.

At that single action, I felt a surge of energy in me. "I knew it," I said, "Jude fucking saw her."

The face of Jude flashed across my mind. That mocking smirk that she hid under a mask of consideration and benevolence. I knew it was fake. I just didn't know to what extent.

 _She knows where Wendy is._

"Okay," Barren said. "So, she walked out of the building with the paper she wanted, and came back to her car." He took a drag on his cigarette, and made a gesture of half-shrug and half-headshake. "And, what? Why did she abandon the car? Why is the car parked here in the first place, instead of in the parking lot?"

"I don't know . . ." I said. "Perhaps, she went back to sneak in, like I did?"

"For what? Was there something else she was looking for?"

I said no.

"And even if she really did go back in," Castelo said, wearing a similar grimace, "we've searched the entire facility. Where else could she be?"

 _Not quite so entirely._ My heart shrank like a balloon when the notion hit me. Mary and I shared a look of fret. She looked out the car window, to the deeper part of the woods. Then, I knew we shared the same fear, too.

"No, it can't be." I shook my head. "She doesn't even know where to find that place. And she already had my death certificate. She had no reason to stray from our plan"

But this desperate denial only fanned the uncontrollable dread in me.

"What? What's over there?" Barren said.

Mary grew more jittery, fidgeting with the sleeve of her coat. I looked at her from behind my eyelashes. Her lip quivered. She bit it away.

"There is—" Her voice sounded high-pitched, on the brink of tears. "There's a little yard, in the back of the building."

"Is it on the property of Briarcliff?" Castelo asked.

Mary gave a nod.

Barren dropped his cigarette, and stamped it out with his foot. "Let's take a look."

After driving back to Briarcliff, the four men walked to the back of the building, with us on their heels. At the beginning of the passage, we stood and looked ahead. It looked like a void, the thickest darkness known to Earth. The detectives threw light, and the dark easily swallowed and absorbed it. Dry branches of trees whispered in the wind. I looked back, and saw the opening of the tunnel. It looked like beckoning us into the dark as well.

Castelo took the first step forward. I stopped him, with my hand on his arm.

"You all have guns, right?" I said.

He raised a brow. "As a precaution."

"Loaded, yes?"

"They are. Why?" He looked at me and Mary back and forth. "Do we have a specific reason to be cautious?"

I faltered. I stole a glance at Mary. But the gaze of Castelo felt sharp, expecting sincerity of me, and I couldn't give him a complete lie. I chose my words, instead.

"There is something in the woods, something dangerous. I don't— We don't know what they are. All we can tell you is that they could hurt us. I was chased once."

"Carnivores, you mean?" one of the officers said.

I nodded and watched them, as the four heads turned around in unison, to look into the woods.

Castelo took his gun out of his holster. "Is this path leading to the yard?"

I nodded again.

"Okay— Rakes."

"Yes, sir," the middle-aged officer from our squad said.

"Stay inside the car with them. We'll be back soon."

"No, we're coming with you," I said.

"Fewer people means a lower possibility of provoking the animals," Castelo said. "And although we are trained to act to danger quickly, we can't guarantee to protect you two."

"You'll only be burdens. Stay," Barren said, and began his less-than-heroic march into the path.

The other officer followed. And Castelo, too, treaded in the steps of his partner, after offering us a reassuring smile. Within seconds, their figures went engulfed in the darks, and the creaking of the branches drowned out their footsteps. Even long after this, despite Castelo's instructions, we remained in the same spot. Somewhere in the distant, an owl was hooting.

Officer Rakes lit his cigarette, and signaled us. "Let's go. It's getting hellova cold out."

But neither of us moved.

"They'll find out about Arden's experiment," I said.

Mary stayed quiet. She continued to look ahead, with a crease between her brows. A peculiar look of regret shimmered in her eyes, as though she had just bidden farewell to someone dear, or something dear. Still, she held her head high.

"When I went in there with Kit and Grace," I said, "we saw the yard in the early sun. And . . . I saw a half-eaten human hand."

My eyes welled up, as the image flashed across my mind. I couldn't run away from the fear, from a certain idea, too dire for me to utter. The soft wind blew into my teary eyes. Mary still stood in silence.

Then, there came a popping sound in the distance, somewhere from the inside of the woods. I jerked my head up, searching for the source of the sound in the dark. We heard another similar sound sift through the wind.

"It's a gunshot," Rakes said.

And, as though it was the starting pistol for a race, I darted into the path at a top speed. Behind me, Mary shouted my name. But soon, the swishing wind in my ears became the only audible thing. The cold air felt like pins and needles. My cheeks burned, the tip of my nose ached, the walls of my throat and lungs screamed at the sudden invasion. I could not see the path, or anything in the vicinity. I only kept running towards where the detectives were shouting, as I solely relied on my luck not to run straight into a tree or have my foot caught in roots.

"Wendy!" The sky swallowed my voice. "Wendy!"

A couple more gunshots echoed, much closer to me.

Never in my life had I ever done anything so inexplicable, running towards an active war zone with nothing but fear-driven recklessness. But when the first gunshot had reached my ears, I really thought Wendy was there. I believed, with the strongest instinctive conviction, that I would find her there, sunk down on the ground, as bullets flew over her head. And I really thought she was calling out to me.

Three beams of light came into my view, then, floating around in the dark like jack-o'-lanterns in a ballet. The voices of the detectives sounded clear now.

 _I'm almost there!_

"Wendy—"

One of the jack-o'-lanterns turned around, shining directly in my eyes. The abrupt, extreme brightness startled me. At the same time, something caught my foot. I lost my balance, and fell on the ground, flat on my face. When I lifted my face, the flashlights were casting me a spotlight. I held my hand to shield my eyes. They lowered their flashlights at last.

"Goddamn it, woman! I almost shot you!" Barren said.

Castelo hastened to help me get to my feet. "What are you doing here? Where's Miss McKee?"

I struggled to regulate my breathing. "I thought . . . I'd heard Wendy."

He threw light on the path I'd just came running. Footsteps approached. And on the edge of the brightness, Mary's thin frame appeared. As she ran towards us, however, another shadow took shape right behind her. It ran towards her like a bull, despite its limping way of running, and growled like a bull. Mary didn't seem to notice it.

Castelo fired in her direction, in such swift motion I could only flinch at the deafening roaring of the gun. I heard, even with the ringing in my ears, a long groan, followed by a heavy thud.

When I opened my eyes, only one figure remained standing in the brightness— Mary. She stayed on her feet, frozen in fear, but without an injury. We ran up to her, and it was when I saw the thing on the ground just behind her.

It was one of the creatures. It lay on its front, squirming like a warm. The blistering skin glistened in the flashlight, but as it continued to thrash about, the bodily fluids glued dirt to the skin, and it no longer gleamed. A pool of blood began to form under the body. A tiny twig floated in it. And at last, it stopped moving. The thumping of my heart could not seem to slow down.

Rakes caught up, holding his side as his chest heaved.

There was another corpse a little away from us, towards the center of the battle zone. The one that had tripped me up. It had its face up, its dead eyes looking at the dark sky. I couldn't look at it. The smell of rotten flesh stirred up the inside of my stomach.

"Oh, Lord save me. What the hell are those?" Rakes said.

"They jumped out from behind the trees, growling." Castelo sounded quite distressed. "But I thought you said—"

Barren made a shushing sound all of a sudden. Then, in the nauseating quietness, we heard another rustling of something. Mary pulled me into her arms, as we looked around.

And just behind the deformed tin bucket, another creature showed itself.

The detectives pointed their guns at it. Castelo moved to stand right in my line of sight, and I could no longer see it. But my ears could now pick up the sound of the ground moving under everyone's feet. It sounded like the creature remained motionless there. Not like its fellow creatures. The wind only carried wheezing sounds to me, as though it was having an asthma attack.

"Why isn't it moving?" Castelo said to Barren.

"Whatever the reason, I'm going to bury a bullet right between its eyes the moment it moves."

"No, we shouldn't kill any more of them." Castelo cast a quick glance at us over his shoulder. "We should slowly get off this yard, and it might leave us alone." With his gun still held high, he took one cautious step backwards, then another, after another. The broad of his back grew closer and bigger to me. Castelo looked at us over his shoulder again. "Miss McKee, Miss Winters, let's go back. Rakes, lead the way."

Mary's embrace loosened. At the same time, the creature let out another type of sound. Not quite a groan, or a shriek, or a whimper. _Arrr Arrr_ , like a baby trying to enunciate its first word. My curiosity came before my survival instinct, and I took a step sideways to have a look.

Its hospital gown seemed cleaner, less worn-out, compared to the ones on its fellow creatures. Although it had sticks and leaves in its hair, the hair itself still shimmered in the light.

Then, our eyes locked. I still wonder, to this day, how it could see me, when the night shrouded my figure in darkness. But it wasn't my eyes or brain playing a cruel trick on me. It really looked straight at me. Those brown eyes. It cried out again, the same two long vowels echoing through the woods. And, at last, I understood. I heard the voice that was stuck in her swollen throat.

My words, too, died in my throat.

The world around me blurred. The clock stopped ticking. Only the two of us, in the eternity that only existed in the crevice between this world and the other. The one millisecond that would define you for the rest of your life.

My breathing fell in sync with the painful wheezing of her breathing. I heard her heartbeat. She held out her arms, with blisters instead of goosebumps on them, and began to come towards me.

 _I'm almost there._

The distance between us felt like a thousand miles. Yet somehow, she came within my reach in a blink of an eye. I could see the delicate, sharp arches of her brows, and those freckles on her cheeks and nose. Her thin lips. Her fluttering eyelashes.

Then, the roaring of gunshots pierced through the thick fog of the blurred realm. The next moment, the entirety of the world collapsed, with a single heavy thud at my feet.

###

Mary and the detectives shouted over my head, pulling me up by the arm, then by the shoulder. Back inside the entrance hall of Briarcliff, Barren spoke with the guard. People began to crowd around us. They talked over one another, as they hovered over us. I felt vexed at the swarm of people, at their sudden shift of attention. And at the same time, I couldn't care less about it. Their words sounded incomprehensible to me anyways, like a flock of loud pigeons shrieking in my face. Only, it was not breadcrumbs these people wanted.

Mary found shelter inside the chapel for us. She made me sit where we used to, and ran to the platform for a candle. I must have been shivering, because she took off her coat, and draped it over my shoulders. I did not feel cold, or warm.

Someone came in. The person had a particularly shrill chirping voice, as they spoke with Mary in the same cryptic language. On the wooden surface of the bench before me, the shadow of the candlelight swayed. It looked alive. More than any of us.

Then, something touched my cheek, rubbing against my skin. It touched again. I felt the wet coldness of it. At the next contact, my nerves registered the roughness of a cloth. When the first fiber of the wet cloth touched my neck again, at last, I turned my head around to see Mary. Despite having been aware of her presence, I felt as though she just appeared out of nowhere. Residual tears made her eyelashes twinkle.

"I'm sorry the water's cold," she said. "Sister Felicia said she couldn't enter the shower room for warm water."

A layer of water shimmered on her hands, as she wiped my hands with the cloth. My coat had dark stains on both of the sleeves. My hands, too. It looked like blood. I wondered how the blood had ended up covering me in such a messy way.

"You tried to cover her wounds, to stop the bleeding," Mary said, as though she could hear my inner voice.

Or, perhaps I might have actually said it out loud.

 _Wendy's blood._

Mary didn't seem to hear me this time. She wiped my hands clean, rinsing the cloth in the water several times. The shadow on the bench swayed, in rhythm with the sound of water. The droplets on her hands were now translucent red. When most of the red came off my skin, she ran her index finger across my palm.

"You have scraped your hands," she said. She removed the smallest pieces of pebbles from the cuts, and beads of my own blood seeped out.

I did not feel pain. "It must be when I fell dow. I tripped over one of the bodies." I looked around, then. "Where are the others?"

My voice sounded hoarse and weary, but I felt a peculiar sense of serenity for some reasons. As though I had gone through all the five stages of grief during the short moment of blankness. As though it had been decades since the acceptance.

"Detective Barren went to Sister Jude. Detective Castelo is talking to his chief on the phone, so we could have more officers. And the two officers are just outside the door." As she said this, her voice began to have a tremor. She put the cloth back in the water, and sniffed. "I told them about it."

"About what?"

"About Dr. Arden, about his experiment. I couldn't keep lying. It's over. They're going to find out everything."

"Are you scared?"

Her jaw clenched. "I don't have a right to feel scared."

"For Arden? Are you scared?"

She drew her brows together. "No. Of course not. How could I? He did that to . . . Miss Wendy." She barely squeezed the name out, before tears came streaming down her cheeks.

But I didn't cry. In fact, I think I smiled a little. "Did you see it? See her face? Those blisters? And I thought I'd find her body torn to pieces." I looked down at my own hands. The red still remained in every fold, as though following the outline of my hands. "You know, I've learned to assume the worst, since the moment I saw her signature on the paper. If it was just Jude's words, I wouldn't have believed anything. But I saw her signature. Then, I realized anything could happen. And I was right. I got punished for pursuing freedom and nearly died because of it. When I finally got the freedom, I had you taken away. I thought I'd known every pain on earth. But even then, I couldn't predict this . . ."

I rubbed my fingers together. I remembered Wendy, and her pure smile when I gutted a fish one evening. My hands looked just like now. And I chased her around the house, trying to smear the red on her face. Her giggles echoed just right next to my ear.

"What an ending. Shakespearean."

Mary let out a sob, but stifled the next one.

"But," I said, "someone had to die, I suppose."

"No, that's not—"

"It's a quote by Virginia Woolf. ' _Someone has to die in order that the rest of us should value life more.'_ "

Mary shook her head. "What us? The world?"

"Us."

All of a sudden, she leaped from her seat, and with contrastingly slow steps, walked to stand on the edge of the aisle. Her frame trembled. "Then— Why wasn't what we went through enough?" she said. She turned around. "What more did we have to learn after everything that had happened?"

Her wide eyes brimmed with tears, her nose red. Yet, unlike her usual crying, she did not curl up or squeeze her eyes shut. Her back remained straight, as she looked straight at me. Then, her eyes had the sparks, twirling with the shadow of the flame behind the tears. She seemed angry, and seemed to demand actual answers to her questions.

"Why wasn't it enough?" she said again.

"I don't know. I'm not the one who decides."

I looked at the statue of Jesus above the pulpit. He seemed to bow his head extra low this evening, his cross extra big and hefty. His open eyes pierced through my soul, accusing me of all the lives lost.

"It should've been me." Mary's voice was quiet now, as she faced Him.

I looked down at my hands. "It should've been me," I said, almost mechanically. The residual blood had dried on my skin, and it flaked off, when I clenched my fists. "I couldn't let my words out, like Andersen's Little Mermaid. But I never managed to save the prince from drowning, and . . . How does the story end? Do you think it could've been different if I'd said her name right there?"

Without a doubt, my speech was sporadic, nothing but a collection of orderless sentences. Still, I felt certain that Mary could understand me, just as Wendy could.

Her gaze rested on my bloody palms, in pensive silent. "No," she said at last.

"Why not?"

"Because— She was going to attack you. They had to protect you."

I felt myself smile again. "That's not true. She was no danger to me. She was just reaching out to me, saying my name. I know she was. How could they— I—" But here, I lost my train of thought. "I saw her freckles."

Mary hesitated. "Freckles?"

In her tone, I heard great sorrow and pity. And even without knowing why, my heart shattered to pieces. I tried to play the moment in my mind, tried to cut through the haze and reach the other side. The moment before the roaring gunshots, before the collapsing walls. But only the flashlights flickered. In the distance, I heard her voice.

 _Arrr Arrr . . . Lana . . ._

Wasn't it my name? Or did my mind spin a golden thread to sew up the fatal gash in my heart?

I looked up at Mary, found the same heartbroken eyes. Then, it came to me at last— How could I have seen her freckles under those blisters?

I shifted my gaze to Jesus on the cross. The candlelight couldn't quite reach him, only enough to have his silhouette emerge from the darkness.

Thick shadow hid his eyes.

* * *

 **A/N:** a few moe chapters to go!


	42. Chapter 42

The news spread like wildfire.

The paramedics looked horrified at my blood-covered appearance once they arrived. And the remaining blood in their faces drained, paler than marble, upon their discovery of the wounds on my palms. They immediately sent me to a hospital for examination.

"We can't take any risks, can we?" they said.

Whatever that had created the creatures could be blood-borne, and I could have contracted it. Mary stayed with me in the hospital the whole time, despite everyone's opposition.

"Do you know if it's contagious?" I said to her.

She didn't know.

To everyone's relief, the tests found nothing wrong with my health. Except for anemia and low blood sugar, my blood looked to be in good shape. I couldn't remember when was the last time I had sufficient food. With brief dietary advice, the doctor let me go home the following morning.

By then, everyone in town knew about the mad scientist and his maniacal experiment. Within a few hours since the incident in the woods, the whole nation had nothing else to talk about. And Arden's occupational title as physician almost caused a moral panic, giving people, including Louise, a valid reason to refuse to go to doctors.

The police arrested Arden that night. The unexpected carnage and Mary's testimony served as more than sufficient evidence against him. And a little later, they found buttons of a coat and remnants of moccasins in the fireplace of his office. Probably Wendy's. I could not identify them.

"Our guess is that he put her in an inmate gown to make her blend in," Barren said.

But they knew nothing else, as Arden refused to talk to them. He would only talk to Mary. It was only her, that he'd ever tell the truth. Arden left the detectives no other choice.

At first, when Barren came to Mary while I was still in the hospital, I feared he would put handcuffs on her, too. From the grumpy expression of his, I could never guess his true mood. Yet, it turned out that Arden denied any involvement on Mary's part. Not so surprising. He even went as far as to call her delusional. It might've been easily the most horrifying act of disrespect in his eyes. _Blasphemy_ , he might have even called it. But he chose to insult her, in order to protect her from a life behind bars.

Despite his eternal loyalty, however, Mary no longer wanted anything to do with him. Her sense of indebtedness had turned into mere bubbles that night, popped together with the sound of gunshots. Still, she agreed to give the police a hand eventually.

"I owe it to Detective Castelo," she said, as she slumped.

With the weight of guilt on her shoulders, she went back to the station the following day, alone. When she came home, I asked her to tell me everything she'd learned in the interrogation room, every word Arden uttered to justify the demented world of his.

The arrest didn't affect him in any way, as far as Mary could tell, neither despondent nor relieved. He acted as though he was still at Briarcliff, looking down on people. And he told Mary the truth.

He was on a grand quest for a human evolution, for a neo-species of humans, and the creatures in the woods were indeed some of the missing inmates at Briarcliff. He called them Raspers, made to endure radiation and extreme heat and cold by genetic alteration. The quest itself was something he'd always had in mind since his youth. But in the world of _imbeciles_ , he had no means to realize his lifelong dream. The opportunity only arose three years ago, when he became the resident physicist at the institution.

To the question _How many inmates did he sacrifice?_ he answered, "I don't know."

The most shocking part yet, was that Monsignor Howard had some knowledge of this affair. In fact, it was him that gave Arden a laboratory, a bed, free access to the information regarding patients' families, and of course, the patients.

"But he said he'd lied," Mary said. "Monsignor Howard thought the experiment was for a cure for tuberculosis."

"And, about Wendy?" I said.

She showed great hesitation to my question. I insisted on hearing it.

After finding Mary by some odd coincidence in the hospital room, Arden returned to Briarcliff. The Raspers needed feeding. His important business. With Mary gone, every task had become his responsibility. Whether or not he had the intention of continuing the pursuit of Mary afterwards, I didn't know. There was no wondering.

That afternoon in the yard, Wendy caught him in the middle of the feeding. Only Wendy could explain how it'd happened. She might have spotted Arden at the back of the building, as he disappeared into the little passage. A tall, bald man in a white coat easily stood out in that place. Or she might have just decided to venture into the woods, in search of the creatures I had told her about, and hit the bull's-eye at the wrong time.

Either way, her gut feeling must've detected potential danger. She hid her purse, with my death certificate in it, under the driver's seat. Her instincts failed to tell her to just go home.

Either way, this might not have happened, had I warned her.

Arden captured her on the spot, and dragged her to his lab in order to destruct the walking evidence. The clothes would give away the anomaly, so he put the hospital gown on her, just as Barren had guessed. By the time his medicine altered her, she looked unrecognizable without her clothes.

"But I did recognize her," I said, "even without her clothes."

"He didn't know who she was at first," Mary said. "If he had, he would've done it differently, he told me."

"How did he find out, then?"

"He went to Sister Jude and asked."

When Jude learned that Arden held Wendy in captive, she looked as though it came from God himself. A miracle. I doubted she knew about the complete picture of the captivity. Still, her joy and relief made sense. She had just let Wendy walk out with my death certificate. It might as well have been the final nail in her own coffin. The only way to save her ambitious career at that point was to allow Arden to take care of Wendy. How, she never asked him. Their risks and benefits finally matched after all these years of rivalry. They came to an agreement to hide the car, as well as to destroy my death certificate.

Her scheme for revival had a huge hole, however, that she failed to acknowledge in her desperation. Those documents meant as much as her career to Arden— Nothing. When he couldn't find Wendy's purse in the car after an unenthusiastic frisking, it didn't occur to him to look harder. He cared about himself, and only himself.

"He must've assumed nobody would find the car there, too," I said. "An easy error of judgement for a woman like her, to place her fate in the hands of that kind of man."

I asked Mary to tell me more, even the smallest, the most insignificant details. I listened like it happened to someone else. A journalist keeping track of sensational news, that was what I was. Not the person who had experienced it firsthand. And there was no denying I felt a certain sense of thrill, learning all these things before any reporters.

"Are you going to visit him again?" I asked her.

She furrowed her brow, and shook her head. "He wanted to me to, but I never want to see his face. I told him so. I have nothing but contempt for him now."

Shortly after this, Arden got stabbed to death in jail at night, in a fight with his cellmate. A shank, a well-sharpened spoon, penetrated his abdomen, but the wound itself was not a fatal one. He just left it untreated. It was a slow, agonizing death that lasted the length of the night. By the time a guard found him, he was lying in a pool of his own blood. Some said that he was the one who had provoked the killer, and that he'd seemed to try to get on his nerves on purpose.

 _Crazy old man,_ they said, _not knowing his place._ But Mary and I had a contradicting suspicion.

We learned this from Castelo, in the following morning of Arden's _assisted suicide_. Even after Wendy's case closed, Castelo often made a visit to us. To check upon us, he said. And yet, he would always look around the house, as though expecting to find someone else. He would always fail to disguise his disappointment when only Mary and I greeted. Despite its obviousness, I couldn't decide if Mary was aware of it. His visit always seemed to trigger an equal level of agitation on Mary's part. But without fail, we would keep our hearts unspoken, secure under our sleeves.

Besides these frequent visits, Castelo stayed true to his words, and helped me with my own case, to bring down Briarcliff. It didn't require us to break a sweat. With the death certificate signed by Jude, every pieces of the puzzle had put themselves together. And Arden's confessions glued these pieces for good. They put Jude and Howard in handcuffs, within a week following Arden's arrest.

As expected, Jude denied any wrongdoing, but it soon dawned on her how futile it was. She made a poignant attempt to protect Monsignor Howard. That too ended up in vain. Had it been only about Jude's fabrication, Howard could've received a simple warning against his negligent supervision, and gotten away with the rest. But Arden's confessions served as too strong a piece of evidence for the authorities to ignore. The three decaying pillars finally gave out, and Briarcliff Manor crumbled to rubbles.

This didn't make the headlines, though. The media already had enough stories of Aden's lunacy to sell their papers. The Church exploited this opportunity, and with their power, succeeded in shrouding this atrocity in the darkness. I wrote a book about it years later, including this cover-up. It incited the wrath of the Church, and they branded me as a satanist.

They gave upon Briarcliff as a whole, too. They deemed it better to sell the institution to the state, than to continue to have its notoriety connected to their name.

Jude learned about the fall of her beloved Howard nonetheless. The weight of guilt and anguish might have been more than she could bare. She began to show symptoms of a psychosis inside the prison. And they eventually transferred her to a mental institution, where she would spend most of her life in a straitjacket. How ironic, so much so it made me want to believe in a higher power after all.

Sánchez survived the whole calamity, like a cockroach. He still works at Briarcliff to this day, slaving away for the rest of his life. I see him every time I visit Grace. His eyes have never lost the vindictive glint after all these years. Only, his bushy unibrow began to grow gray lately.

.

I gave Wendy a proper burial. A small funeral, with only a few of our good friends. It snowed that day. The six-feet-deep brown pit looked alien in the white ground. Delicate snowflakes fell onto the closed lid of her casket, slowly covering her with a thin, almost translucent blanket. I watched some flakes land on my open palm, too. They melted as soon as they touched my heat.

I tried to contact her parents after the funeral, to let them know at least where their daughter was buried. But the instant they heard her name, they hang up the phone. I never bothered to make another attempt.

Not once had I cried since the night in the woods.

We had both of our cars back in the driveway of our house. Two cars that I never wanted to drive or see again. I sold them both, and bought a new car.

Even then, I rarely used the car to go somewhere. Most of the time, I stayed inside my room, desk-bound, overburdening my typewriter. I would write and write, as though nothing else existed in the world. I finished my articles in two weeks, and a book in two month. _Briarcliff Manor: House of Mad God._

During this time, like I said, nothing else entered my mind. I relied on Barb and Louise to look after Mary, as they volunteered after the funeral. They helped her get familiar with the outside world, encouraged her to expand her social network, stayed with her in her loneliness, comforted her in her agony. Because I couldn't do any of them for her.

"Why don't you just see her?" they'd say. "Ask how she is, tell her how you are."

"I can't. I'm busy," was always my answer.

"Don't you know she cries for you?"

And I'd pretend not to hear it.

Of course, I had tried several times, driven by a pang of conscience. She needed someone, to help her fight her trauma as well. But seeing her face, the simplest action, was tantamount to climbing Mt. Everest. Her face, those very eyes. Every time I got a glimpse of them, they reminded me of Wendy. It was the caring look, the love, the longing in her pale blue eyes. They terrified me. And what's more, she got her long hair cut, to match the length of her severed strand. The tip of her hair now rested just below her collarbones, just as Wendy's did. When she stood in the kitchen, in our apron, she really looked like Wendy. I couldn't bare the sight, but there was nobody I could blame.

We slept in our respective rooms. The warmth of another body, I thought, would only give me nightmares. Almost every night, I'd hear Mary open the window in her room, and sob on the windowsill. I could feel her pain seep through the walls, through my skin. But instead of going to her, I would turn up the volume of my radio.

It was the most miserable time for both of us, I knew. Yet, I feared her sorrow would drag me down. I didn't want her to treat me like a broken china doll. I didn't know how not to treat her like a broken china doll. It was so easy to let myself drown in lonely agony, to believe nobody else could understand the pain of it all. No need to share it with someone. The sorrow would only become more real.

.

The general public received my book with awe, with fearful curiosity about the dark side of the Church. Some critics even predicted the next Pulitzer would be in my hands. That fueled people's interest to the next level.

As days passed, the impact grew more and more apparent and tangible. A plethora of phone calls inundated my editor's office, as well as my house, asking to have interviews, asking me to give speeches. And I accepted all of the offers. This was what I wanted, why I had gone out on a limb and crossed the threshold of Briarcliff in the first place. I let my old ambition consume me. This hunger for success. It numbed my heart like a drug. Still, not numb enough to block out Mary's sadness. My entire being screamed for more of the oblivion. When they asked me to go on a two-week book tour across the country, I jumped at the offer, an opportunity to run away from Mary.

But a couple of times during the trip, she called me on the phone. I had given Barbara the telephone numbers of the hotels I'd be staying at. She'd tell me how everyone else was doing. In return, I'd tell her about those cities she'd never even heard of. Always an awkward exchange of meaningless words and silence. My spacious hotel room always grew suffocating afterwards.

And with this stifling air clogging up the telephone line, she informed me of her new job at St. Luke's Hospital one day.

"I'm not smart enough to become a nurse," she said. "But I still get to look after people. That's the only thing I'm ever good at. Caring."

I accepted it without a question, like an indifferent parent under a guise of leniency. "If that's what you want to do, Mary."

My days remained hectic for a little more. Yet, the initial heat of the public fizzled out eventurally, as other new waves of craze carried them away. The paparazzi no longer followed me around the town. Overzealous fanatics no longer rang us up in the middle of the night. And it grew harder by the day, to distract myself, to keep myself occupied.

The fifth month was about to pass.


	43. Chapter 43

One evening of May, I sat at my desk as per usual. In front of me lay a pile of letters, from fans and haters all mixed together. For the past five months, I had been neglecting to even sort them out. So far, the number of threatening letters surpassed the number of amicable ones. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Out of a few dozens, only a couple of particular white envelopes caught my attention. They had the same name and address, the handwriting rough but careful. I opened them and began to read.

Then, Mary came to knock on the door. "Dinner's ready," she said, as she put her head around the door.

"I'm not hungry."

Although this simple sentence worked fine at the beginning, she soon had learned to press at the right time.

Instead of withdrawing, she came in. "But you skipped lunch today, didn't you?" She walked to me, and rested a tentative hand on my shoulder from behind. "I cooked you something special. Please."

I turned around.

She drew her hand back, covering it with the other hand in front of her chest, as though I'd just bitten her. Her gaze seemed cautious, and yet pleading. She had on a new dress, I noticed, with her crucifix tucked underneath it. A dress that belonged to neither me nor Wendy. A dress she had bought herself.

"Fine." I surrendered at last.

As we walked out of the room, her hand came brushing against mine. The touch had an intention. I raised my hand, to tuck my hair behind my ear.

Luscious air filled the hallway. It smelt saucy, warm. The dining room was dimly lit. Candlefire flickered in the center of the table, its reflection on the bottle of wine nearby. I faltered at the unexpected sight. Mary pulled a chair for me, and I sat down, bewildered.

Although she had cooked for me on the daily basis, nothing like this had happened in the last five months. The lavishness was definitely out of the blue. It felt as though I'd fallen through a rabbit hole head-first. As Mary disappeared into the kitchen, I stared down at the two empty glasses—a wine glass for me and a regular glass for her—half expecting them to start dancing.

Mary re-emerged and put a dish of skillet chicken before me. Steam wafted up. Her lips curled into a bashful smile, as our eyes locked for a moment.

"Wine?" She held the bottle, as though it was the true blood of Jesus. "They had so many brands at the store I couldn't decide which one to pick. But my coworker said this one was good."

"I don't want it," I said. "Alcohol makes my sleep light."

With a stiff smile, she tried to conceal her look of dejection. "Water, then."

I know I was being an ass, for treating her kindness like this. She didn't even drink alcohol. With me refusing even a glass, she might as well have dumped her hard-earned money in the sewer. I wanted to be nice, to accept it without any bitterness or spite. Yet, after these months in deliberate isolation, it rendered me absolutely clueless as to how to behave in her presence. You'd be surprised how easy that could happen. Everytime our eyes met, I couldn't help but avert my gaze. I forgot how to smile at her. And the irregularity of the night did not help at all.

"What's all this?" I gestured to the feast.

Mary looked at me from across the table, mild puzzlement in her gaze. "For a special day," she said. "I found the recipe in one of the cooking books on the shelf. The page was dog-eared, so I figured it was a favorite dish of yours or . . . Miss Wendy's."

"Did something happen at work?"

"No, it's—" Her smile wavered. A look of uncertainty spread across her face. "It's your birthday, isn't it? May 10th. I— Did I get it wrong?"

I pondered her words. The last time I checked the date was a few days ago, the 2nd of May. I had a meeting with my editor that day. Although that felt like only yesterday, I knew my sense of time was not a reliable one at this point. A week could've easily passed since then.

"No, you didn't get it wrong," I said. "It slipped out of my mind. Not the most important thing anyway."

Her shoulders relaxed. "To me it is."

"When did I ever tell you?"

"When we started to talk. In the chapel, I mean, when you told me about Miss Wendy." She cast her gaze down, as she always did when she said Wendy's name.

"Do you remember everyone's birthday?"

"Not everyone's. Only those of the people important to me."

"But we were only starting to get to know each other at that time. I couldn't have been that important."

Then, blood rushed to her cheeks. She played with her utensils. "But I knew you would be," she said. "I don't know why. I just felt that you'd mean much more."

I couldn't decide how to respond, or how to feel. Back then, she only meant little to me, a mere means to escape the confinement for a couple of hours at night. I forced a smile. And in this loaded silence, we ate. The chicken tasted a little different than when Wendy cooked it. A little less salt, a little stronger flavor of lemon. Mary was the better cook.

After the main dish, Mary brought out cake. But something else she placed on the table got my entire attention. A square package wrapped in pretty flowery paper. I looked at her, as she sat back in her seat with sheepish air. She held my gaze for a second, and flashed a smile, bashful and slightly timid.

"Birthday gifts," she said, eyeing the package. "I hope you'll like them."

I took it in my hands. It was about twice as big as my palm, not very thick or heavy. I immediately knew it was a notebook—every writer's _favorite_ gift.

"You didn't have to." I mustered the strength to offer a smile, while removing the pieces of tape one by one.

Despite my speculation, it was not a notebook that first came into my view. On top of the thin pile sat a wooden bookmark, its top half carved into an intricate cutout of flowers and veins. The second was a letter, and at the bottom a plain notebook. With the letter in my hand, I glanced up at Mary.

Her face became redder at once, as though caught red-handed doing something embarrassing. And as I began to read, she leaped from her chair, rushing into the kitchen.

The letter, unlike the one between the Bible, only had a couple of short paragraphs.

 _Happy birthday, Lana._

 _I hope you like my gifts to you. I know you like to dog-ear pages, but I wanted to give you something that you could keep close to you, that you already didn't have. It was difficult because you seem to have everything I could think of._

 _I don't want you to feel obligated to use them, but at least I hope you'd look at them sometime and think of me. I do not ask for more._

I studied the delicate design of the bookmark, and noticed my initials carved at the base. I felt the indentation with the tips of my fingers. Something fluttered in my heart. Only just the faintest vibration within me. I looked over to the kitchen, and wondered why she hadn't come back from the other side of the beads curtains.

In the corner of the kitchen, she sat on a stool, her hands on her lap. When the floor made a creaking sound under my weight, her pale eyes rose to me. In the dim fluorescent light, a hint of timidity shimmered in them.

I leaned back against the fridge by her side. It let out buzzing sound in the stillness of the moment.

"I like it," I said, looking down at the gift.

And the whole twisted muscles of her face loosened at once, as a sigh escaped her lips. Her smile looked tearful, relieved beyond words.

"You said before that it's the thought that counts," she said. "But I wanted to give you something actually useful to you. I couldn't think of a better idea."

"You could've gotten me a pen. That's what people usually choose for me."

"But—" She dropped her gaze. "You already have the fountain pen from Miss Wendy."

Again, I had no recollection of telling her about it.

Her shoulders slumped. "I hate that I don't know anything about you."

This haphazard remark caught me off guard. I glanced down at the bookmark, feeling the woodwork. "Don't you, though?"

The despondent shadow lingered, as she stared off. "Not like Miss Wendy did. Your favorite dishes, music, what kind of clothes you like. I thought I knew, from all the letters and the nights in the chapel. But . . . I don't." The crease between her brows deepened. "I try, but I don't know how to make you happy."

Then, in the shaky voice, I felt her love, felt her yearning, the same warmth of her heart that had saved me countless times. Tears threatened to roll down her cheeks. At last, something fell into place, something that had shattered into tiny fragments in that yard of Briarcliff. The fog around me cleared up a little. And it finally dawned on me how much, and how long _I_ had made her suffer by herself. We could've sanken to the bottom of the sea together, given up, and put an end to everything. But she kept swimming, with me on her back.

Although the shore was still far away, we could see it through the fog now.

"You know," I said. "I was reading letters from Kit. He's written me a few times, but I haven't had a chance to write back. Maybe, it's time we paid him a visit, don't you think?"

Mary gazed at me in silence for some seconds, and at last, nodded her head.

"We have plenty of time," I said. "Together. We'll relearn things about each other, starting from square one again."

She gave another nod, her smile a bit wider. "I would like that."

.

This night, we slept in the same bed together in my room. And with our hearts beating in sync, she recounted the tales of herself racking her brains in the murky library.

"Writing that birthday letter reminded me of those times. Everytime I received a letter from you, I would grab a poetry book that I would never have dreamed of reading otherwise, and bury my nose in it."

"Why poetry?"

"I wanted something to share with you, to impress you. I was so desperate to be your equal. Your brilliance. I wanted to be worthy of you."

Her voice felt hypnotizing close to my ear.

###

Kit continued to live in his old house on the outskirts of a nearby town. It was an ideal location, he said, to visit Grace at Briarcliff on the weekend. Since his unexpected attainment of freedom, he had made a couple of attempts to have his six-month-pregnant wife released. So far, the state's administration had denied all of his requests. An axe murderer was still an axe murderer, even with a new life in her womb. At least, the whole family was healthy.

The whole family. The picture didn't have his missing wife, Alma. Before my decision to visit Briarcliff for the first time, I had read about the mysterious circumstances that led the authority to arrest Kit. Him falling unconscious during an inexplicable attack. His wife's disappearance. The shocking discovery of a headless corpse of a black woman.

That decapitated corpse later turned out to be someone else. And yet, Kit would never be able to welcome Alma back.

"You know Bloody Face," he said, "he had another body, frozen in his cool box. She had her head and face intact, and . . ." He let out a sharp breath, as his voice wavered. "At least, I had a body to bury. Other families weren't so lucky."

He kept the pictures of Alma around the house. It was brave of him.

The conversation then led to Wendy. I told him everything. It was the first time I ever talked to anyone about her since. It still felt like someone else's tale. A distant tragedy in the newspaper.

The look of heartbreak seemed more vivid on Kit's face than mine.

"I saw her, the day before Jude released me," he said, at the end of my tale. "I don't know it was before or after she saw Jude, but she came to the common room. She recognized me there."

"She did?" I remembered asking her to find Kit and Grace. "Grace didn't see her, so I assumed the same for you."

"She didn't stay that long."

"Did you talk to her?" I said.

Kit gave a nod. "She asked me about your life there, if you had ever talked about her, if you had close friends there. She looked so guilty I felt sorry for her."

The argument and her tear-soaked face returned to my mind. And her attempt to redeem herself. I wondered how she felt, breathing the air of the place Mary and I had grown close.

"Then, she told me I'd be released soon," he said. "It was unimaginable. Even after she told me about the news of Thredson, I still couldn't believe it'd happen so soon. But the next day it happened. She predicted it, my freedom." A dejected smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "I thought she might have been a messenger of God, not that I believe in any of the stuff."

This would've made Wendy laugh, to be described as such a holy being.

The rest of our conversation centered on our lives, how our jobs were, and how the world had changed for us. To my relief, people's attitude towards him had softened after his return.

"They're just guilt-ridden, those god-fearing monsters," he said. But I reminded him that it was far better than people wanting him dead.

As we talked more on the front yard, I came to notice his little signs of unease. From time to time, he would cast a loaded glance at Mary by my side. When their eyes met, he would give her a stiff smile. It didn't surprise me that he felt uncertain about her presence, though. They were practically strangers, and Mary was an ex-member of his oppressors.

That was my assumption.

While Mary went to the bathroom, it was him that began to talk about her.

"She looks good," he said, "I didn't recognize her at first. Especially the hair. I expected it to be longer somehow."

"She had it cut recently," I said. I chose not to reveal the reason. It was Mary's choice to make.

"And you two live together?"

I gave him a nod.

He grew pensive, as he looked to the expanse of green field before us. "She loves you," he said at last, "it's obvious." It wasn't an accusation, though he seemed a little melancholic.

"I know."

"Do you love her?"

"She makes me happy, keeps me afloat."

His gaze shifted towards the house. "Do you love her like your Wendy?"

I pondered on the idea, then said no. "She isn't a substitute for Wendy. Don't worry about her."

"I'm worried about _you_ , Lana," he said, as he braced his elbows on the table. His eyes looked into mine.

And because of his unfeigned seriousness, my smile was genuine. "It's not the same kind of love that I feel for her. Not that it's more profound. It's just different. Something not everyone can experience in their lifetime, I think. I don't know if there's a word or a definition for what we are. I just know it's special. Right now, that's all I need."

The uncertainty on his face remained, his fingers picking at the cigarette butts in the ashtray. "I just— I guess I'm just stunned. I honestly never imagined you'd be this close to each other."

"Neither did I."

And together, we chuckled.

"So, what's next for you?" he asked. "Your articles were a huge success. Where do you plan to go from here?"

I told him about my plans to write about Bloody Face, to go on a journey to learn the life of Oliver Thredson. That was the beginning of everything. The story couldn't end without going back to where it started.

"But it can wait," I said. "I have many things to do before that."

Mary was standing on the other side of the screen door, her eyes on us. She lingered around there, as though afraid to interrupt our conversation.

I smiled at her, and beckoned her over.

###

Several days after, we set foot into Briarcliff with Castelo again, not in search of someone, but to visit someone.

Upon entering the building, I felt a strong sense of bewilderment. It appeared that the state had made some bold alterations in order to secularize the institution, removing almost everything with Christian symbolism. The marble statue of the Virgin Mary, the crosses on the walls, the veils and the habits, they were all gone. There was a large circle of unblemished white on the floor in the entrance hall, where the Virgin Mary used to stand. Only the chapel remained untouched.

"For some reasons, these changes make me a little uneasy," Castelo said.

I had to agree. I found myself wondering what they called _the Stairway to Heaven,_ now that it no longer led to the realm above.

The state had transferred a great number of inmates from another institution. As a result, the common room was more packed than before, the pungent smell of filth stronger. The only solace was that the inmates no longer had to endure the repetitive melody of Dominique. And yet, it felt like the ghost of the music still floated in the air. I felt it whisper in my ears, like an impish fairy of a sort.

We found Grace, with an ever growing belly, sitting in our designated area. Her initial reaction was surprise. Then, her big eyes displayed a mingled color of confusion and wariness at the sight of Castelo.

The young man, too, seemed to have trouble concealing his bafflement. We had only asked him to accompany us, without telling him why.

Mary made them sit. She introduced them to each other, and through her tears, confessed her past mistake to Castelo. Her contribution to the death of his sister, Olga.

"I can't ask for your forgiveness," Mary said, sobbing. "I made an unforgivable mistake. You may hate me for as long as you'd live."

I did not interfere at Mary's request. I had faith that she could do this alone.

In contrast to Mary and Grace, Castelo never shed a tear. He didn't speak for a very long time, perhaps five minutes or so. I held Mary's hand, as we all waited for him to wrap his head around it. It was more of an emotional process, I knew, than a logical one.

When he opened his mouth, his soft voice sounded fragile. "It's good to know she had someone she could hold dear. Both of you two." His grey eyes travelled between Mary and Grace. "She was happier than I thought, happier than our family could have made her, probably. She loved someone and was loved by someone. Her end was not lonely."

Even with the whole truth of Olga's death still unsolved, he seemed placid. Perhaps, this was the kind of closure he needed.

When we stepped onto the front porch an hour later, Castelo stood among the pillars, and looked up the clear summer-time sky. Something shimmered in his grey eyes. But I wasn't tall enough to look in them.

"This universe works in funny ways, Miss Winters," he said, his gaze still skyward. "Sometimes, the answer you desperately seek can only be found in exchange of something precious. And sometimes, you have to take the precious thing away from someone else. Sometimes, it's yours that has to be taken away. There's no distinct line between the taker and the taken. It's always cyclic."

Precious things, like Olga, like Wendy.

I still think about this from time to time. I knew what he meant. The life is full of cruel exchanges, some of them you never agreed to make in the first place. The life of Wendy in return for Mary's. The freedom of Kit in exchange of Mary's dignity and purity. And without Mary's suffering, I couldn't have attained my success and fame. It seemed like we could only have so many precious things in our hands at a time.

On the way home, driving the new car, I finally felt ready to visit Wendy.


	44. Chapter 44

The snow-covered cemetery now flourished in the vigor of summer. The sunlight reflected off the verdant ground. Mary led the way. She remembered the location of Wendy's grave better than I did. A large oak tree stood erect near the grave. An abundance of its young leaves literally took us under its wing, as it blocked direct sunlight.

At the base of her marble gravestone, a bouquet of flowers seemed to cherish the shade in repose. They looked rather fresh, only the edge of the petals starting to discolor. Someone had come to her recently, my friends or Castelo. I put my bouquet next to it. I stood up to tower over her.

The stone was a rectangular board. Frugal. No characters. I gazed down at the cold stone that seemed no more special than the other ones in this place.

 _GWENDOLINE PEYSER_

 _BELOVED TEACHER_

 _1934 - 1965_

The inscription held nothing but foreignness to me, as though it was the grave of a complete stranger. Still, I kept looking, until the sight was branded on my mind. I blinked a few times, then closed my eyes shut. The whiteness of the stone flickered behind my eyelids. The colors of the flowers looked vibrant, emphasizing the cruelty of beauty. The stone stuck out of the green ground like a bone of the earth.

All of a sudden, I became aware of the earth beneath me, the soil and the coffins. Hundreds of the bodies under my feet. A jolt of anxiety froze my body for a second. The idea felt no less morbid than imagining myself on top of a mountain of corpses. It was all the same. I was alive, and they weren't. I began to shift on my feet. The ground felt squashy.

Next to me, I felt Mary inching away.

"I should wait in the car. Give you two—"

"Stay," I said, as I took hold of her warm hand. "I want you to stay with me."

A hint of hesitation clouded her eyes. Her lips parted to say something, but a moment later, she only bit her lip and nodded.

I looked back at Wendy. "I just feel quite . . . awkward. I've never visited anyone's grave before. All the rules, they are . . ." I looked about, but found nobody else in the sunbathed green field. "What do people do? What am I supposed to do?"

"You talk to her," Mary said in the softest tone. "Tell her what's going on in your life now."

"Even though she can't hear?"

Her gaze remained heavy-hearted on Wendy. "I'd like to believe she can. But not from the bottom of the grave. From somewhere above us."

"You know I don't believe in supernatural powers. That kind of ideas about the deceased and the afterlife were only made up by ancient people who feared the conundrum of death. Once life is dead, it's dead. There's nothing more to it than that."

But as I heard myself say this, I felt a nudging fear that Wendy could really hear me. Would she be disappointed? Would she laugh at my stubbornness? I felt myself cast my gaze down, ashamed, but unable to explain the source of the shame. Words of regret almost escaped my lips.

"Then," Mary said, "talk to me about her, like you used to. Tell me what's on your mind."

I shrugged. "That I could do, I suppose."

But my mind felt like a ball of tangled yarn inside my head. Although I tried hard, some knots seemed too tight to undo. And it is often the case, the more I struggled, the worse it got. I couldn't even find the end of the string.

At that moment, a loud rustling sound echoed nearby. I looked up, and a flock of birds flew off trees. The small black dots with wings moved across the blue sky. I followed them with my eyes, as they made a huge U-turn, and disappear into the cloudless sky. High above our heads, the lone moon hung in broad daylight.

I gestured to it. "The white moon, she loved it. She loved it more than that in the night sky. It made her feel blessed, feel protected. It was even better with no clouds. Just the white moon in the plain blue sky."

"It is beautiful," Mary said.

 _Look at it, Lana. Doesn't that make you feel closer to the universe?_

And her whole face would light up like a child.

The bright smile flashed across my mind. And at last, for the first time in six months, I allowed memories to flood inside me. Her eyes, her voice, those freckles, and the little crooked smile. Her tears and angry pleas to be heard. The Wendy that I loved, and the Wendy that she pretended to be in the outside world. And the last echo of her voice. All of them swirled within me, like those flashbacks on the brink of one's own death. Then, when the violent force of the initial gyre subsided, a sense of clarity came over me. I no longer had to struggle. The knots had been undone.

I looked at her name in the stone again. The words and numbers suddenly began to have meaning. Then, it finally sank in. That I had lost her. That it was the end. My heart pounded in cruel contrast, as I breathed in.

"I'm such a fool," I said. "Five years. We were together for five years, and I never realized how much she loved me. The sacrifices that she made, to protect me, to support me, so I could do what I wanted to do. I took them all for granted."

 _If you need to take some time off to get this story done, I want you to do it._

"And all the pretense, the lies she told other people about us. She needed them, because the truth could've cost us everything. Our jobs, the house. We would've had nowhere to live and nothing to eat. And the only time she ever cowered, I blamed everything on her."

Her name before me became blurry. I realized, for the first time since her death, I was crying. Then, the inside of my chest grew tight and hot. The tears streamed down my face.

"I thought the only way of bravery was to tell everyone the truth." My voice shook. "I thought we needed nothing but each other. But it was naive. I was naive. And— I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Wendy. I'm sorry I'm so goddamn blind."

I pressed the heels of my palms to my eyes. The darkness took me in, with my sobs reverberating. I wished I could just disappear in it, melting to be nothing but a part of the void forever.

But warm arms came around my body. They pulled me out of the cold bleakness. As my eyes opened, I only saw Mary's blonde tresses. The tip of them tickled my nose and lips. With a gentle push of a hand, she assisted my head onto her shoulder.

"I'm right here," she said. "You don't have to cry alone."

I closed my eyes again, as I buried my nose deeper in her hair. She was taller than me, taller than Wendy. My head rested there with ease. Still, the tears did not know to stop, now damping her dress. My hands remained stiff in front of my chest, between our bodies. Her heart, the proof of her aliveness, beat against my skin.

"I think about the night a lot," she said, in a fragile tone of voice, "and everytime I do, I blame myself. I think, none of this would've happened if I had told someone about the experiment. I could've saved Miss Wendy and the other patients. But I realized, no matter how angry or sad I got, it couldn't change the past. I can't bring them back."

"No, we can't. Even God can't."

Mary slightly shook her head. "But, the Bible says there's always a chance for redemption. I'd like to believe it's true. So, instead of crying, I decided to be more brave, for you." Her embrace tightened. "I want to be strong, so you could cry on my shoulder when you need to. I _will_ be strong for you," she said, while sniffling. "That's the only thing I could do for Miss Wendy."

I let those words linger in my ears, like the aftertaste of fine wine on the tongue.

"I know the past can't be changed," I said. "But I think I'd still blame myself."

She did not say anything.

I freed my arms from the space between us, and wrapped them around her waist. "You will need to guide me through it. Help me forgive myself, like you helped me forgive Wendy."

She nodded. "I promise."

It took me some time to regulate my breathing. But as her rather calm breath caressed my ear, my muscles became loose. Eventually, my heartbeat fell in sync with hers. The wind blew, and the remnants of tears felt cool in my eyelashes, on my cheeks.

With a blank mind, I gazed at the rows of the monochromic gravestones over her shoulder. From a distance, they looked like tiles of Domino. Although the designs of some seemed lavish, with reliefs of angels and doves, only few of them had colorful flowers before them.

One stone close to us, a _neighbor_ of Wendy, had a bouquet of completely wilted flowers. It had two names engraved in it. _Clare and Hendric._ The years indicated their long lives. Spouses, most likely. The husband passed away only two years after the passing of his wife.

At the sight, I became aware that even in death, Wendy and I could never be together like them. I'd be buried somewhere else, under a different stone.

"I'm sorry I made you wait for so long," I said to Mary, still looking at the neighbors' names. "Sorry that I couldn't apologize sooner."

"I wish I could've pulled you out of the darkness, but waiting was the only thing I knew how to do."

"Sometimes, it's the hardest thing," I said. "Mary, I want you to know that you _are_ my equal. I'm as weak as you are, as lost as you are. I'm not God, but a helpless human. And I need you."

I pulled away. Thickness of tears shimmered in her eyes, and I saw the clear figure of myself in them.

###

The ghost of Wendy still haunted me. Once I had allowed myself to feel, I didn't seem to have a choice to switch it off. In every corner of the house, little pieces of her remained hidden. They would show themselves to me in the most unexpected forms, without fail catching me off guard. The simplest acts in my daily life would trigger sudden floods of memory. Brushing my teeth brought back the memory of her complaining about the price of toilet paper. Putting on a jacket in front of the closet reminded me of the melody she loved to hum. At every short-term writer's block, I would remember the baby pink nail polish she once wore.

The memories would come back, and I'd be paralyzed for a moment. And afterwards, the memory of _remembering those things_ would stick to me. Over and over.

I could not stay there anymore. I needed a new start. I harbored this vague idea of moving out one day, and by the evening of the same day, the idea solidified into a substantial plan. At first, I feared that my suggestion would upset Mary. Not only did she love her colleagues, her job at the hospital also seemed to give her positive energy. Serving people really was her true calling, as Arden had said. The new change could have a devastating effect on her.

Despite my apprehension, however, she responded to the idea with eagerness, not a fraction of reluctance.

The success of my career now enabled me to put more than enough food on the table for both of us. Still, she insisted on finding a new job. It didn't matter what kind.

"I want to see the world," she said, "I want to learn things like you do."

We found our new house in the suburbs of New York, near the border between the state and Connecticut. Close to the Big Apple, but country enough for Mary. The house was smaller in size compared to our current one. But there was a church within walking distance, as well as a yard in the back of the house. Weeds grew without inhibition in the bed of untended soil. But, the sight still got Mary captivated.

"My mother used to have a backyard like this." There was a nostalgic smile on her face. "A garden of roses."

We signed the paper on the spot, and the house was ours.

Louise assured us that her family would take care of the current house, with the whole set of furniture in it. I wanted to get rid of as much as I could. For the new start, I needed a drastic change. Like a snake shedding its skin.

It also facilitated the process of packing, and it only took a couple of days to stow most of our stuff. Although the most bulky was my collection of books, they too required no more than three medium-sized boxes. The hardest part of it all was not tangible. It was the good-bye that I had to say. Wendy's stuff remained untouched and unpacked.

The human heart, in moments of conflict, acts in the most bizarre way. My eagerness for the new life had never dissipated. Over the course, however, a new sense of reluctance had sprung in me. I felt like I wasn't ready—not strong enough yet—for the final good-bye. I put it off as much as I could. I thought, with naivete, that it'd be easy in time.

But it didn't, and the last evening at the house came without mercy.

After dinner, I gathered courage, and with Mary's help, put them away at last— Her clothes and shoes, cosmetic products, books. Every item felt like an ancient artifact, sending endless waves of distant memories. My heart churned. There seemed no way to fight it. And within a minute, my eyes brimmed with tears, sobs tearing from my throat.

Mary encouraged me to recount these memories. "Do not bottle them up," she said.

The excruciating pain felt just as raw as the night I lost her. It only grew more torturous every passing second. But I knew, had a visceral feeling, that if this pain ever faded away, I'd give anything for its return.

This pain was the proof that I ever loved her.

"Her entire life," I said, standing over the boxes on the floor, "in just five boxes. Isn't life pathetic?"

Mary, remaining on the floor, had tears in her eyes herself. "Physical objects don't measure a person's life. She had love that nothing could beat."

"This love cost her life," I said, not to bite her head off, but to simply state the fact.

Nonetheless, she shrank away, with her gaze cast downward. Her hand ran along the opening of one of the boxes.

I looked down at Wendy's fuzzy slippers, buried in her clothes. My cigarette had a faint flavor of salt. "Do you think she felt pain when they shot her?" I said. "Or did the drug make her immune to pain, too?"

The question had emerged not now, but a few days ago. It was such a morbid idea, and would have no definite answer. But in this moment, I felt like I needed to voice it. To get the poison out of the system.

"I don't know," Mary said.

I tried to remember that exact moment of that night, the moment in the world of the in-between. It stayed as a blur. No matter how hard I tried to sift through my memory, that part never showed itself. All I could recall was the sight of my blood-stained hands, lit by the candlelight in the chapel.

"She died in my arms, and yet, I have no memory of it."

"You were in shock."

"Sometimes it feels like it never happened. Just like waking from a dream without seeing the ending."

Mary stared down at the floor for a long time. "Would you want to see the end even if it's a nightmare?"

"I don't know. But I can't help but wonder."

I sat down on the mattress. The air in the room stirred, and I smelt the faint scent of Wendy's perfume.

"In solitary," I said, "when I was on the brink of death, I saw something . . . or someone. A woman in all black. She . . . I don't know what she was. But I knew she had come for me, to end my suffering." The image of her bewitching rouge lips flashed across my mind. "The pain was too much for me to endure. But when she looked me in the eye, all of it evaporated. I felt serene. Nothing to be afraid of. Ready to be let go." I took a deep drag on my cigarette, expanding my lungs to the fullest. "I know that woman was a hallucination my dying mind made up, but if that kind of serenity is what Wendy felt in the end—"

"No."

I looked up at Mary, and found her face twisted in deep emotion.

"It wasn't a hallucination," she said. She wiped her tears away. "I saw her, too. She came to me in the white chamber."

In the basement of Bloody Face, where the maniac chained her to a bed.

She still had nightmares sometimes, the face of her torturer vivid and raw. I would coax her out of the dream, and to encourage her to recount it. The face of Thredson, the sterilized basement, the various degrees of assaults, and the sharp needle. Although they became familiar images to me as well, her despair was unfathomable.

In that terror, she'd seen death in the eye.

I crouched down, and pulled her into my arms. An awkward embrace, as we sat on the ground. Her hand crept up to collect the fabric of my dress in her fist. Her slim frame trembled.

"It wasn't a hallucination?" My own voice sounded queer in my ears.

She shook her head. "As real as death itself."

The knot in my throat grew bigger, as it sank in. "Thank God she didn't take you."

"I almost let her. I was so tired of fighting."

"But you resisted. You fought, and you came back to me."

"I had no other choice—" She paused, and her grip on my dress tightened for a moment. "It was literally the kiss of death she was going to give."

I remembered the almost irresistible magnetism of those rouge lips. Two glowing rose petals in the darkness.

"I think about it all the time," she said. "If it had been a reaper with a scythe or something else, I would've given up there."

"You resisted because it was a kiss?"

She gave a slow nod. "I didn't want it, not like that."

Through my tears, I let out a chuckle. "Who knew all it took to resist death was to say no to the kiss?"

Her laugh sounded teary, but genuine.

I pressed my lips against her temple. I looked over Wendy's belongings, then. The face of the woman in black flickered before my eyes, with that merciful dark eyes looking down at me.

"Maybe, she saw her too," I said.

That idea, despite its unclear validity, gave me the solace I craved.

We remained on the ground, in silence. The boxes had yet to be sealed. For the second time, I felt a mingled feeling of wonder and uneasiness. How could our entire lives be so simple and light in the end? A few boxes, and a single coffin. The weight of a soul was next to zero. How could the rest of us, the ones in this world, believe in the significance of our own lives?

"What are you going to do with them?" Mary asked.

I said I'd donate them.

"All of them?"

"They'd be better off. Better than collecting dust in the closet."

She fell silent, lost in thought. "Don't you want to keep some, though?"

"You know I'm keeping the radio and the other gifts from her."

Her pensive countenance remained unchanged. There was a look of conflict on her face, as she picked up a roll of duct tape nearby, fiddling with it. "But little things like these are as important, like how she liked to wear her scarf, or her favorite brand of cereal . . . those little things easy to forget." Her voice had a hint of fragility.

Perhaps, she was thinking about her mother, and all the things about her mother that she couldn't remember anymore.

I looked back at the boxes again. I then imagined the five boxes sitting in the corner of the closet in our new house. What would Wendy say? I wished she was here to tell me.

"I still have a little more to pack," Mary said. "I'll give you some time alone." She stood up, walked out of the room, and closed the door behind her.

In the absence of her warmth, a sudden wave of faint chills ran through my limbs. I lit another cigarette. With my gaze trained on the boxes, I walked around the room like a wild animal in a cage. In a cage with some imaginary menace. The whiff of her cherry blossom perfume flowed around me in tandem with cigarette smoke. It made me feel more trapped. The feeling of agitation only grew more harassing. I eventually settled in the corner furthest from the door. The walls too smelt of Wendy's perfume.

 _What is there to think about?_

These little memories were exactly what I wanted to run away from. The little ghosts of her. But, from the persistent tone of Mary's voice, I knew it would break her heart if I made a decision not to keep anything. The two conflicting options closed in on me.

On the other side of the wall, Mary was making faint rustling sounds.

"What do you think I should keep?" I shouted.

"Anything that holds memory of her."

Almost all of the stuff in the boxes did. I walked closer to them, gazing down. "But, what about the new start?" I said.

There was a brief pause. "You don't need to shout, Lana. I can hear you just fine."

Even with the door closed, her voice sounded clear.

"I don't think you need to leave everything behind to become a new person," she said. "Sometimes, you need to build a new life upon those things."

"Like a cornerstone?" I used my regular talking voice.

Another pause, a little longer than the previous one. "You are much better with words than I ever will be." I could imagine a small smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

Still, the sense of reluctance lingered.

I searched the sea of my memory for an answer. For the five years of my life with Wendy, the topic of death and the afterlife had come up from time to time. Nowadays, there seemed no shortage of stories of death in the media. Once I began to follow the story of Bloody Face, the frequency increased ten-fold. But never had we ever talked about our own mortality. To us at that time, it felt like an idea from a sci-fi book. Space, extraterrestrial creatures, death, the afterlife. We thought we'd had plenty of time until it became reality.

 _What do you want me to do?_

No answer came. And that nothingness might have been her answer.

Then, here, I lost my train of thought. Something else entered my mind, though I couldn't put a finger on what it was. It continued to flicker, like the shadow of the candlelight in the chapel. I looked around, to search for the source of the nudging feeling. Only the smoke of my cigarette floated in the air.

Mary heaved a sigh in the next room. The faintest sigh, but clear, as though she was right next to me.

That something in my mind kept nudging me.

I looked to the dividing wall, as the coils in her mattress creaked. "The walls are thin," I said, still clueless. "I can hear your dress rustle."

"Yes, I know."

 _She knows._ I never did.

"Can you hear me?" I said. Not quite a whisper, but quieter than my regular tone.

Mary said yes.

At last, the strange sensation took shape.

I stood up and went to her bedroom. I found her sitting on the naked mattress, legs stretched out. As I entered, she looked up from the Bible placed in her lap.

"Did you decide which ones to take?" she said.

Without a response, I climbed onto the mattress, and sat next to her. Our shoulders touched, our toes nearly touching. Mary closed the Bible. Her inquisitive gaze gave my skin a tingling sensation.

"I never knew how thin these walls were," I said. "We had never had anyone staying in this room until you came." I then looked at her. "You could hear everything, couldn't you? Everything we said on the other side of the wall. Even when we talked in a hushed tone, you could hear."

Blood began to rush to her cheeks. It was a confirmation.

All the venomous words of Wendy. Her cruel honesty that she didn't dare to say in the face of Mary. It all travelled to her nonetheless, tearing her heart apart like a bare knife. Mary endured it all by herself. The old heartache returned to me.

Another memory flashed across my mind, then. "Is that why you used to sleep in the living room? You used to sleep in the couch, remember that?"

She seemed to ponder my words. After a moment, she dropped her gaze, and flashed even harder at once. But besides the color of embarrassment, there was a look of something else in the way she bowed her head.

"I didn't want to invade your privacy."

Guilt, I sensed.

"Things like that should be between you and Miss Wendy," she said, "I didn't think you knew—"

But nothing more entered my ears. Her guilty tone and red cheeks, they gave away the true meaning of her embarrassment— She could hear everything. Absolutely everything Wendy and I said and did in the room at night.

 _Things like that_. . . But 'the things' didn't point to Wendy's cruel words.

It felt like a splash of ice-cold water in the face, freezing my mind to a complete stop. No words came to me. All I felt was the incredulous heat in my face and neck. Even my toes looked red. Although I couldn't look at Mary, I knew this made her blush harder and harder. The awkward silence lingered still, licking our skin like the humid air of mid-summer.

At last, Mary cleared her throat, and broke the silence. "Do you think—" she cleared her throat again. "—that our next house will have thin walls like this?"

She fiddled with the edge of the book's tattered cover, as she stared down at it with stubbornness. The nape of her neck, half covered by her hair, had goosebumps.

Perhaps because her embarrassment seemed greater than mine, I felt myself unwind. The churning of my heart subsided to a steady rhythm. I rested my head on her shoulder. I felt her tense up for a brief moment, and become all relaxed.

"Let's hope not," I said. "But it wouldn't matter. We'll sleep in the same room."

Our hands found each other. It was the most natural way, as thought we'd done this countless times for decades.

 _I want to remember this moment_ , I thought. The warmth of her hand, the emptiness of the room, her belongings in a duffle bag and a box in the corner, the peculiar coolness of the bare mattress, the cordial feeling inside me. I wanted to remember this in every detail. Just like all the photographs of Wendy in the albums.

Tomorrow morning, it would be the good-bye.

Nostalgia was painful. But the pain felt good.

"I think I'm going to keep her stuff for a little more," I said.

"All of them?"

I nodded. "I'm not ready for another good-bye. Not yet."

Her head came to rest on top of mine on her shoulder. "All in good time," she said. I could hear her smiling.

"You always know what's best for me."

For some moments, she stroked the back of my hand with her thumb in silence. "I'm only being selfish," she said. "I want you to be happy, because my own happiness depends on it."

"Selfish girl."

"I know."

"I can never be miserable, can't I?"

"No. Not as long as I'm around."

I closed my eyes, to let the comforting darkness encompass me. In this moment, the weight of her head on mine felt like my entire world. If Wendy would be my cornerstone, Mary would be my central pillar.

"Mary?"

"Yes, Lana?"

And the way she said my name felt more than enough. More love than I would ever need for this lifetime. It made sense of everything. It made me whole.

A knot tightened in my throat. "I want to be buried with Wendy when I die," I said. "If not, somewhere near her. But if I live long enough, things might change for the better, and I'd be able to openly say ' _This is the person I loved._ ' Then, I want you to get rid of everything of mine, save a few. Don't look back and regret. It might be tough, but that's what I want from you."

Mary remained quiet.

"I'm saying this, because I have a chance now. I don't want you to feel lost like I did."

After a long moment of silence, she said, "Okay."

"But of course, things change. Hearts are uncontrollable even when they're our own. You don't have to stick with me just for the sake of it."

She lifted and turned her head to my side. With mine still perched on her shoulder, she could not look in my face. Her delicate breath, mixed with hesitation, caressed the top of my head.

"You think I might leave you one day?" she said.

"Life is full of uncertainties. Just like we found each other at Briarcliff, you might find something or someone totally unexpected. If the other path seems brighter, there'll be no reason for you to stay with me."

"But doesn't that mean it could happen to you one day as well?" She sounded slightly defiant.

"Perhaps," I said. "I can't promise you the future, bright or dark."

"It's a bleak view on life."

"I'm being as optimistic as I could. I can't pretend, after what happened to us, that we have full control over our lives." I lifted my head at last, and looked her in the eye. "So, the only promise I could make is that I would fight for you, for us, if the time comes. I need you to believe in me."

She kept silent, pondering my words, as her eyes never left mine. The sparks glimmered.

"Will you?" I said.

And with the flames in her pale blue eyes, she made a smile at last. She nodded. She took a deep breath. The crucifix in front of her chest heaved.

 **~END~**

* * *

 **A/N:** A profound thank-you to all of my readers. I hope I didn't leave any plot holes. If there's any, please let me know.

It took me more than a year to finish this story, and on the way, I've experienced some losses in real life. This story and the feedbacks you guys gave me every week were a great comfort to me. But now that it came to an end, I'd like to take some time off from writing fanfic. I might be back someday, I might not be. Who knows? Life is full of uncertainties.


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